Who Do You Fight For?
by MuffledWalnut
Summary: Miranda Lawson spent two years researching and bringing one person, the famous Commander Shepard, back to life. So she shouldn't have been surprised when Shepard woke up and absolutely loathed her./ Garrus knew his best friend was dead. When Shepard proves him wrong, she's not exactly what he was expecting. ME2 through the eyes of Miranda and Garrus. F!Shep/Miranda slow burn.
1. Playing God

**This is a first person POV story told though the eyes of Miranda Lawson and Garrus Vakarian. Other characters may tell parts as well, but they are secondary storytellers. More importantly, this is a retell that is NOT from the eyes of Commander Shepard. My goal with the story is to reveal Shepard through the eyes of the others. Also, while I intended for this to act as a sequel to my first story, _The Beginning_, it now acts as a separate work. **

**For those of you curious about the relationships in this story, this is femslash. You've been warned.**

**There shouldn't be any applicable trigger warnings (besides, perhaps, graphic violence), as the majority of triggering things are kept to mild descriptions. If this changes at any point, I'll be sure to update this warning and put a warning at the top of the appropriate chapter.**

**While the first chapters are heavy in dialogue straight from the game, the majority of the story will be original dialogue. I am a slower writer, so it's already been a year since this was first published, but I do publish as regularly as possible (about once a month). Also, I think my writing continues to improve with every chapter, and I hope my readers will notice as well! **

Ch. 1: Playing God

Miranda

It was strange to look at another human being and be able to recall what their very insides looked like. I could remember the exact color of Shepard's heart and how it connected into the rest of her body. I knew every bone, including which ones still had pins holding them together. I recognized every skin graft and recalled the lines where they fused together to make a whole. I remembered the day when we first saw brain activity on the monitors. God, my heart had soared that day. The woman sleeping on the table in front of me was a work of art and a downright miracle of science.

It had been a grueling two years, but the last few months that had been the hardest. All Shepard's systems had officially been cleared for functioning without help from machines. She had finally reached what I would call alive, but she was also incredibly vulnerable. If her body started rejecting the synthetic implants, we would have to move quickly or we could completely lose her, as well as over a year's worth of progress. I had spent numerous nights sleeping at her bedside, never fully able to reach unconsciousness because I worried something would go wrong if I slept. Now, she was stable, and it was almost time to wake her up. Sighing, I traced a finger along her cheekbones before moving to smooth back her hair. I felt a surprising amount of tenderness towards this woman I had never really met, yet knew so much about.

I wanted to trap this moment and keep it close. It could be one of the last peaceful moments I might have with Shepard. I rested my hand on her forehead and let my fingers trail across the still healing scars, thinking about the inevitable once she woke. She would hate me because I was Cerberus, and I knew I would never let her see that it hurt me. I had spent countless hours by her bed imagining what she would look like when she smiled, or when she laughed, before I realized those expressions might never be directed at me. I was the enemy to her, even if we could convince her to work with us. The great Commander Shepard had been cold, even to her friends; how much more so would she be towards me? That I, Miranda Lawson, essentially brought Commander Shepard back from the dead was incredible, but I sighed because I knew even this feat would mean nothing to Shepard when it was wrapped in Cerberus packaging.

Remembering back to when the Illusive Man put Shepard in my protection, I halted. How in the world had he known? No one could have predicted something like this happening. She had seemed so…invincible. I tried not to worry about what would happen on the day we woke her up, but there were so many things that could've gone wrong. Will she be the same woman she was before, so confident and stubbornly good? There were already noticeable physical changes that we hadn't been able to help. Her trademark honey blonde hair had darkened into a red auburn. The gene for her hair color must have mutated during reconstruction to allow the recessive red to be expressed. That was just theorizing on my part though, and I honestly had no idea what happened. However, I think her eyes were the most unsettling. Her bright violet eyes have become a vibrant green, with a ring of molten gold around the irises. I had walked into the lab one morning and raised her eyelids for the routine checks, and they had changed, just like that. Color me surprised. I had called Wilson to look, but he remained as clueless as I am about it now. I found myself twisting my fingers as I thought. Was it another gene mutation? It was possible: there was just so much cutting edge science that we didn't fully understand yet. Any number of things could have caused the pigment change.

I paced as I tried to imagine the Illusive Man's reaction. I didn't think he'd mind the minor physical changes so long as her mind and personality were intact. It was an insignificant change, after all. I did good work in all the ways that mattered. There was no reason at all that Shepard should not stand up from that table as the same woman she was two years ago. I had made sure of that, but I couldn't help that small nagging doubts that continued to whisper in the back of my head. What happens if she isn't the same? Could a changed Shepard still save the galaxy? I wasn't sure I even really cared about the galaxy at that point; Project Lazarus, _my_ project, could not be a failure.

Noises outside the door drew my attention. _That's odd_. I tore my eyes away from the sleeping Shepard and rushed down the hallways. I was caught by surprise when mechs started shooting at me, but I disposed of them easily with a biotic field. _Who reprogrammed the security mechs?_ I decided to head to the next wing over, to a security room that I knew would have camera access. I glanced over my shoulder once, worrying about the body that lay trapped in its vulnerable sleep.

XXX

"Wake up, Commander"

"Shepard, do you hear me? Get out of that bed now. This facility is under attack."

I finally see Shepard react to my voice, as well as to her bed jolting under her. From the camera angle, it was difficult to see her, but I watched as her eyelids fluttered and then she reached up to feel her jaw. I saw her mouth something, but I couldn't make out the word. When her face twisted with pain, I felt a small pang of sorrow; she should have been allowed to heal for another week before being woken up. Every fiber of her body had to be hurting. Shepard looked this way and that, trying to orient herself, but I heard gunfire and saw a group of mechs getting close to the medbay.

"Shepard. Your scars aren't healed, but I need you to get moving," I said urgently. "This facility is under attack."

"There's a pistol in the locker on the other side of the room. Hurry!"

Shepard rolled off the bed, hissing as she clutched at the pain in her side. Stiffly, she limped to the locker and opened it. Inside was her armor and she managed to quickly put it on, though the familiar movements were strained. The pistol was there too, but I knew the magazine would be empty.

"This pistol doesn't have a thermal clip," Shepard grumbled, clearly exasperated.

"It's a med-bay. We'll get you a clip from…damn it! Keep your head down, Shepard, and shield yourself from the blast!"

Shepard quickly ducked behind some medical equipment as a canister exploded.

"I suspect someone has hacked security trying to get to you," I tried to explain. Shepard nodded. There, in front of her, was a dead man and his discarded thermal clip. Shepard picked it up and expertly popped it into the pistol. She smirked with a satisfied twist to her mouth as it slid in with a smooth click. I had to admit, it was weird watching the features I had spent two years rebuilding become fully animated. Shepard's cheeks were already flushed from the physical activity, something she hadn't had for over two years. I bit my lip, worried she hadn't had enough time to heal, but there were no other options. We had to get off the station. Genetic modifications or not, it's not like I could carry her.

My wrists ached as my fingers flew across the keyboard interface, opening some doors and sealing others. I watched one of the larger YMIR mechs closing in on Shepard's position and sealed the door to her hallway. Multiple staff members were trapped with the mech too, but I watched unflinchingly as it gunned them down. It was a necessary loss, and now the mech turned toward another hallway, unable to open the sealed door. When I couldn't seal a group of mechs off, I yelled a warning down to Shepard. She was performing well, her aim was still spot on, and the mechs came down quickly. I was relieved that Shepard hadn't tried to use her biotics too much; while we had kept her nourished intravenously during her sedation, it was calculated by how many calories her body would need while at rest. With this much activity, Shepard was going to need more food to use her biotics without completely exhausting herself.

Another small squad of mechs came around the corner, and I ate my words as Shepard flared her biotics in preparation for an attack. She propelled her body forward, tearing through the group in one hit, but the effort left her crouched on the ground with fatigue. I saw Shepard wipe away a spot of blood that had dripped from her nose: the first sign of biotic overuse.

"Damn it, Shepard! Your body isn't ready for that yet. Stay in cover and absolutely no more biotics," I yelled over the intercom.

Shepard looked annoyed and grimaced when she managed to push herself onto her feet, but I saw her give a small nod before she continued her stiff walk forward. With the next group of mechs still several doors away from Shepard, I took the opportunity to peel my eyes away from her movements and pull up the security footage of the station. Someone on the inside had to be the cause of the attack, so I pulled up the access logs to the security room. Of all the personnel that had entered the room in the last few hours, only one name stood out: Chief Medical Officer Wilson. The doctor had no reason to be in the security room, so I pulled up the video footage timestamped for his moment of entry. The video showed my coworker, Dr. Wilson, hacking the mechs to the station, though I had no idea how he even had clearance for those systems. A few seconds later, the hacked mechs were shooting at him, too. Idiot hadn't thought about what he would do when the mechs found him, and I watched as he stumbled in the opposite direction of the shuttles; he was likely still on the station.

My eyes flickered back to the monitor that showed Shepard almost at the end of the hallway. She was moving slower after her exhibition with her biotics, but was still making better progress than I had hoped. The level of pain she was in should have caused her more hesitation, but apart from the occasional grimace, Shepard was moving steadily forward.

"You're doing great, Shepard. Head to the next room and I'll meet you…" I started, but there was a commotion behind me. Damn it! A whole squad of mechs were about to flood into the security room with me, and there was barely any cover in here. "Shepard? Do you read me? I've got mechs closing in on my position! I have to get off the comm, but you can follow the emergency signs to the shuttle..."

The power to the room went down, and I hoped Shepard had heard my message. _Damn it, Miranda. Stop worrying and get the hell out of here_, I berated myself. I pulled my pistol from my side and slid over to a weapons locker on the other side of the room. All the guns were too big; I was an awful shot will an assault rifle. Finally, I found a submachine gun at the bottom and strapped it to my side. There was at least one heavy, metal desk in here, and I moved to crouch behind it.

The mechs walked in slowly, letting their motion detectors try to find me in the room. I popped up and hit the two of them with an overload, watching with satisfaction as their mechanical limbs twitched. A single shot through each head unit dropped them to the ground. I dispatched the next two in a similar fashion and waited for the next group. I listened to the walk. There were one…two…four…at least five of them together coming towards me. I could hit two at most with the overload, and only hit multiple targets with my biotics if I was lucky. I was powerful, but I didn't have the skill that most asari developed. My best option seemed to be to hit with everything I had and run for it. If they were staggered for even a second, I would be able to get past them; my shields would hold against a couple stray shots, but not a full onslaught.

I stood from behind the desk. Two were hit with the overload, and one with a warp. Two mechs were still standing to shoot at me, so I pulled out the submachine gun and released the whole clip into a mech on my right. One enemy still stood in front of the door, but I ripped it apart with my biotics and shut the door, just as the other three mechs had recovered and were turning to shoot at me. I leaned back against it for a moment, letting my breathing go back to normal. It had been a while since I had been cornered in a fight with no support.

I pushed off from the door and set off at a run. I needed to get to Shepard. She should be headed to the shuttle bay, but I hadn't been able to guide her all the way there. I decided I would head in that direction and see if she had managed to make it there by herself. If not, the wing she was last in was only a floor up from there and I could go find her. Within a few moments, I was at the door to the shuttle bay and opened it only to find a cavern of silence, punctuated by the sounds of gunfire upstairs.

"Shepard?" I ventured, unsuccessfully. I ran for the elevator, hoping the gunfire I heard wasn't directed at her. I would usually have had plenty of faith in her combat abilities, if she had not been woken prematurely. I knew her combat skills had been formidable before she died, but she should have had more time to completely heal. I didn't even get to run tests to make sure everything was functioning properly during sustained activity. I would _not_ let some mechanical bastards ruin what had been my _life_ for two years. The elevator door pinged open and I saw Wilson standing in front of me. I suppose it would have been to much to ask for the mechs to have taken care of him. My mouth curled into a sneer as I raised my gun, and shot a single round through his head. Shepard raised her gun at the sound and was now looking at me in horror.

"What the hell are you doing?" Jacob yelled at me. It would seem the scrupulous soldier had managed to survive after all. I wasn't surprised; Jacob had a certain knack for getting out of sticky situations, even if he wasn't always the brightest bulb in the box.

"My job. Wilson betrayed us all," I answered in a cold voice. I watched as Shepard slowly lowered her gun.

"I had a feeling Wilson was just looking for a chance to shoot me in the back," Shepard said to me. Her arm was relaxed at her side, but I noticed she hadn't taken her finger off the trigger of her gun.

I found myself smiling at her when I answered, "Good instincts. Some people are far too trusting to ever see that coming."

"Well, I didn't stay alive this long by trusting everyone who claimed to be there to help me," Shepard said, almost pointedly. My eyebrows twitched as I mulled over her words. Alive. But only recently.

"Come on," I said. "Let's grab this shuttle and get out of here. My boss wants to speak to you."

"You mean the Illusive Man? I know you work for Cerberus," Shepard sneered. Her eyes blazed with fire at the name, and her finger twitched on the trigger of her gun that she had raised slightly in my direction.

My lips pressed themselves together in a thin line of irritation. "Ah, Jacob, I should've known your conscience would get the better of you." _You idiot,_ I added silently.

"Lying to the commander isn't the way to get her to join our cause," Jacob said. He was always trying to be so noble.

"Well, since we're getting everything out into the open, is there anything else you want to ask before we go?" I asked, deciding to try and diffuse the heat I see building behind Shepard's carefully controlled face.

Shepard laughed, a sharp sound that sounded anything but cheery. Her face had twisted into a dark mask of anger as she drew closer to me. My instincts told me to back away, but my pride held me in place. God, to see her _move_ was incredible. Monitors telling you that someone is alive is one thing, but this…this was a whole different league. This woman who had been peaceful in sleep now radiated power and darkness. And it was beautiful.

"Miranda Lawson, who are you to play God? I was not afraid of death, and if you think bringing me to life will give you leverage over me, think again. Cerberus lost any chance for my help the minute they released a fucking thresher maw nightmare on fifty-one marines. Or have you forgotten? So take me to the Illusive Man, but don't expect me to play nice," Shepard growled and stalked towards the shuttles.

_Understood…Commander._


	2. She's Alive

**This chapter is a little short, so I apologize. However, the next chapter is more that double the length of this one; I hope that will make everyone happy. Thank you to everyone who has favorited and followed this story! Don't forget to send me a review; I'd love to know what you guys are thinking! Also, please note that I have designated the passing of time or a switch in perspective with "XXX". If I change perspective, the name of the new narrator will be underneath and underlined. I found the large line drawn across the whole page was obnoxious.**

* * *

_She's Alive_

Miranda

The shuttle ride to the Cerberus station had hardly been illuminating. I asked Shepard the basic questions to check her memory, but I already knew they would be intact. She had already directly referenced Akuze and its relationship to Cerberus, and Shepard recalled all the recent events right up to the destruction of the Normandy. I shuddered when she started talking about being spaced. I couldn't imagine falling through nothing, suffocating and then being burned alive in the atmosphere of a planet. I had seen the parts of Shepard's body that had come to us; I knew the hunk of flesh that barely deserved to be called a body, but it was still shocking to hear about the experience from her mouth. Still, Shepard seemed rather nonplussed telling her horrific story and looked even less interested when we filled her in on some of the changes that had happened since her death. The only reaction I ever saw cross her face was from me telling her that it had taken two years to rebuild her. Her eyebrows had drawn down and I could see her mind trying to make sense of that, trying to understand what that meant for her right now.

The whole time I obsessed over her face, her body; I looked for signs that she was overly fatigued or had been injured without telling us. I saw nothing. Shepard sat calmly in her seat. But every emotion she expressed, I wondered if it was real. Was this truly Commander Shepard? I didn't worry that I had brought back a clone or anything. I had personally watched every part of her be reconstructed from original pieces. Her brain had cellular damage, but was more intact than we had first believed possible. My worry was that when we rehabilitated her brain…what if we had hit something we weren't supposed to? Scans had shown full functionality; Shepard was as smart as ever. However, we still didn't understand how the personality presented physically within the brain, and a small mistake could have altered her personality irrevocably. I would not allow myself be a failure.

After the shuttle ride, Shepard went straight to talk to the Illusive Man. I had already been given a mission brief about Freedom's Progress; the Illusive Man was certain Shepard couldn't refuse the request to investigate human colony attacks. I couldn't hear every word, but I could hear Shepard raise her voice. She was definitely angry. I could already imagine the fire that had entered those green eyes and the snarl that would be drawn across her face. Shepard had been beautiful before, in sleep, but was captivating now that I could see emotions move across the surface of her skin. However, I found the woman's idealism to be irritating. All my research had shown a dedication towards duty and honor; she was Alliance through and through. What would the commander do without the uniform? Cerberus had spent a fortune on her, but I had no doubt Shepard would care nothing about that and see nothing but a terrorist organization that had destroyed her life. I had tried to warn the Illusive Man; he hadn't listened to me. I looked up quickly as Shepard walked heavily back into the room.

"Miranda," Shepard stated. I locked eyes with her, raising a single eyebrow. It hadn't been a question and therefore I deemed a response to be unnecessary, but the commander was a woman used to soldiers coming to attention in her presence. I watched the line of her mouth move into what was clearly a look of contempt, but her attitude did little to move me. I was still occupied with watching my reconstructed doll come to life.

"I suppose I have you to thank for my life," Shepard said. The woman sounded neither happy nor grateful, and I found her admission intensely amusing. I kept my eyebrow raised and moved into my traditional pose, a hand on a cocked hip.

"In more ways than you'll ever know, Commander. Did you need something in particular from me?" I said. I watched the irritation flicker across her face at the debt between us as well as to the casual dismissal I had made of her. I felt no actual obligations between us; the debt to be repaid was so obviously between Shepard and the Illusive Man. It was money from Cerberus that had kept the Lazarus Project running, and I had been compensated for every second I had spent aboard that station. The commander must have realized this too, and she didn't appreciate being needled.

"Are you always this bitchy, Miranda, or is it something in particular with me?" Shepard asked. She stepped closer to me, and I quickly clasped my hands behind my back to hide the nervous shaking that suddenly possessed them, a reaction to the dislike I could feel rolling off her body. I lifted my chin and matched her glare; I would not show weakness to this woman.

"Cerberus spent an enormous amount bringing you back, Shepard. It'll take time before we find out if that makes you an asset or a liability. I have no doubt of your physical capabilities; I have watched every vid of you in action that was available and reconstructed your body myself. Once you're over the shock of moving it on your own for the first time in two years, I imagine you'll be as formidable in combat as before, if not better," I said, allowing a small smirk of pride in my work. "However, I find your ideas to be dangerous, as well as your motivations. I believe in what Cerberus stands for, and you threaten that whether you know it or not. You were an Alliance soldier, Shepard, and you breathed by their word. But they won't want you back now, not when your blood was paid for by Cerberus. I can't help but wonder how that will affect your actions. I wonder: will you put aside your personal pride to save the innocent colonists that your precious Alliance ignores?"

I had read her like a book, and Shepard hated it. Her face pulled down in a frown as she considered me. "I can do what needs to be done, Miranda. If what the Illusive Man tells me is true, and the Alliance really won't act, I will fight the Collectors for those colonists. But I will never trust Cerberus, or its operatives," Shepard said pointedly. I was surprised at the resignation in her answer. I had expected her to fight against this mission, and demand to be returned to the Alliance immediately. But the woman showed logic and thought in her answer. It was…different, for a soldier.

I gave her a bright smile that instantly made her wary. "Understood, Commander," I said. I was going to enjoy this back and forth of ours.

XXX

Liara

The omni-tool on my bedside table beeped and vibrated itself off the table. I groaned, wondering who would be messaging my private frequency at such an hour. There was no light coming from the windows, so I knew it was nowhere near close to morning. I threw the covers off my body, instantly regretting their loss as the cold air hit me and my feet hit the tile. I crouched on the floor, feeling with my hands to find my overeager omni-tool. I made a mental note to tone down the vibration settings so it would at least stay on the nightstand. I sat on my bed, tiredly trying to hit the right buttons even when my eyes were trying to go back to sleep. Finally, I managed to open my messages and find the new one. Of course it was from Miranda Lawson. The woman excelled at irritating me. When I selected the message and opened it, I nearly threw the omni-tool against the wall.

The message opened an attachment, a picture. There was a beautiful woman sitting on a bench in a shuttle. She had brilliant red hair and her green eyes sparkled, looking directly at the picture taker. Her elbows pressed into her thighs and her chin rested on her interlaced fingers, a posture I recognized intimately. The N7 logo was easily visible past her arm. It couldn't be. The hair, her eyes…but the face was right. My beautiful Shepard. The message under the picture held two simple words: _She's alive_.


	3. All the Science in the World

**AN: Here is the ridiculously long chapter I promised! It's over 4,000 words, but I couldn't find a good place to break it up. I may not get a chance to post again until the weekend, unfortunately. I have three tests this week, training for a research project I'm on, and the normal woes of work and college classes. Don't be too disappointed; there's still so much more to come. Speaking of future chapters, leave me a review so I know what to do better! I mostly write this because it makes me happy, but I also want to be better at it. Any feedback you have is welcome! A special thank you to my guest reviewer on the last chapter as well as those that have followed and favorited my story!**

* * *

_All the Science in the World_

Miranda

The shuttle ride to Freedom's Progress was unpleasant. I watched as Shepard became visibly more agitated as time wore on; it became even worse when her eyes passed me or Jacob. Maybe it was the Cerberus logos on our uniforms, but I couldn't be certain. Shepard had shown willingness to help the colonists, but I could sense her anger underneath the surface, simmering. I just hoped I wouldn't be at the receiving end when it finally exploded. Was the anger because she was working with Cerberus? It was likely a large part, but earlier she had seemed at least resigned to the notion, if not happy about it. When biotics started swirling around Shepard's hands, I stood up. Apparently, the woman couldn't be left to her thoughts any longer.

"Is there a reason you look like you're going to rip the shuttle in half, Shepard?" I asked casually. When Shepard looked up at me her eyes were dark, swirling with anger and memories. I shivered at the pure malice directed towards me in that look, but continued to hold her stare. It almost felt like a challenge.

"Yesterday…yesterday I was on the Normandy running a routine mission. Now I'm on a Cerberus shuttle with goddamn Cerberus operatives, and I'm not trying to kill them. On top of that, I've been informed that my old crew is 'unavailable'. So I look at you, and all I see are the people that should be going on this mission with me. The people that would still have my back if…" Shepard said before I interrupted.

"…if the Normandy had never been attacked? If an accident, that was nowhere near related to Cerberus, had never happened? Or do you refer to the lovely neighbors you would have had if we had left you to be buried six feet under? Cerberus has granted you a miracle, by any definition of the term. If you're mad about dying, you can hardly direct your anger at me. I rebuilt that magnificent body of yours," I countered.

Shepard was definitely thinking about killing me. I could see it in the twitch of her lip and the way her left brow dropped below the other in a mask of anger. I might even have felt a small spike of fear run through my body. But while her jaw clenched and her knuckles turned white, Shepard didn't move from her seat. It was a good thing we were landing soon; maybe we could find something else for Shepard to focus on. I sat back down and glanced at Jacob. He gave me the look meaning, 'what the fuck were you thinking?', but I just shrugged my shoulders and looked away.

The minute the shuttle touched down and the door opened, Shepard was out on the ground taking point. The place was eerie. The colony lights were on, but there was no movement from within the structures or around them. No one came out to greet us. The first home we entered still had plates on the table; the food hadn't been completely cleared off of them. I had been to the other colonies before, but this was the first colony we had managed to get to before anyone else. It surprised me how much the emptiness unnerved me.

We passed through the outskirts of the colony and moved through a large gate only to be attacked by a squad of mechs.

"What the fuck is this, Lawson?" I heard Shepard shout.

'Those mechs should have recognized us as human. Someone reprogrammed them!" I shouted. They were easy enough to take down and so was the next group around the corner. What I kept trying to figure out, though, is how someone managed to reprogram the mechs to attack on sight. It would have taken too much time. None of the other colonies had even gotten off a distress beacon, and that took less time than reprogramming the colony's mechs. It was more likely that someone had done it after the attack.

"Shepard, we aren't alone here," I said. Her head turned to me, but I couldn't see her face through the helmet. She gave me a small nod and led us forward. My statement was rendered superfluous as we opened the door to see a group of quarians. Their guns went up and trained on us immediately.

"Guns down, Praza, we don't need another fight," Tali'Zora vas Neema said.

"I'm not taking a chance with Cerberus operatives," Praza said, keeping his gun up.

"Tali?" Shepard spoke, and her voice was strained. She pulled off her helmet so the quarian could see her face. Only, the face Tali remembered wasn't the one in front of her.

"Who are you? How do you know my name? Wait…Shepard? That's impossible!" Tali said.

"Cerberus," Shepard threw a glare in my direction, "rebuilt me, Tali. I'm here to look into these colony abductions."

"You mean you're working for Cerberus?" Tali exclaimed. "How could you? You hate them!"

I saw the look of doubt that flashed over the commander's face. She had had the same thoughts and she was struggling with how to answer Tali, when she wasn't sure of the answer herself. I decided to intervene; I was much better at lying through my doubts.

"Shepard is the same woman as before, if that's what you're insinuating. I rebuilt her personally. Her armor had kept the majority of her body intact, if heavily damaged. All I had to do was switch the lights back on. She's not a clone, and she's not an AI. If not those two, what else could she be but herself?" I said. The last question rang straight to my heart, containing the answer that I desperately needed to be true.

"Do you remember those geth outposts, Tali?" Shepard finally spoke up. "You guys let me drive you in that horrible Mako. We got data from each post and I gave the data to you to take back to the Flotilla. Did it help you on your Pilgrimage?"

Tali relaxed visibly and forcefully shoved Praza's gun down. She took a hesitant step forward and then wrapped the commander in a fierce hug, though I also saw her omni-tool run a quick scan. She seemed pleased by whatever it showed, or that's what I thought; I couldn't be sure with her face hidden by her suit helmet. I found myself a little jealous that Shepard would have such a loyal friend, even after being gone for two years. Most people would have a little more…hesitation. But Shepard had always been different; everyone loved her and would follow her to the end of time. _I'm not jealous_, I reprimanded myself.

"Yes, Shepard. That data was an invaluable gift. But, look, we've got to keep moving. A quarian on his Pilgrimage, Veetor, was in this colony before the attack. He hid in the warehouse when our ship landed, and we think the mechs were reprogrammed by him as well. We're trying to get to him to take him back to safety," Tali explained.

I watched as Shepard processed the situation, taking in the still wary stances of the other quarians, though they had backed off momentarily. I could see it in her eyes the moment she had made a decision; they became clear, almost bright in anticipation. She had decided we would work together with the quarians and find Veetor. Veetor was likely our only source of information on what happened in the colony; it was the first colony where someone had been left behind. I saw displeasure in the other quarians' stances when Shepard voiced her plan. They didn't like working with Cerberus, with good reason after we almost blew up that ship in the Flotilla, so I tried to stay in the background. However I couldn't refrain from directing a sarcastic smile at the most ornery quarians grumbling at the back of the group, and they almost started towards me before Tali stopped them with a look. In my mind, it was a look, anyway; you couldn't really tell through the quarian helmets.

My group with Shepard was slowed slightly by a group of infuriating drones. I was the only one with overload tech and none of us were distance fighters. We stayed in cover, hit them when we could, and eventually disabled them all, albeit slowly. It was then that Tali came over the comm to say that Praza's squad had rushed ahead hoping to get to Veetor first. Veetor had then sent out a heavy mech that was destroying the small quarian group. I balked at Praza's idiocy. If you're forced to work with people you don't trust, at least send them first so they take the most fire. It worked out well for us though; at least we wouldn't be surprised like the quarian squad. I looked at Shepard's face, which was actually visible through the visor that she hadn't dimmed, thinking that she would be angry at the betrayal. Instead, her face showed nothing. _She had known that Praza wouldn't listen, but followed the plan anyway, _I thought surprised.

Against an unknown, it would make sense that the quarians and humans attack together: that was the reason Shepard had suggested it. But if she knew that Praza would disobey, it meant one of two things: either she hated Cerberus so much that she wanted the quarians to get there before us, or she intentionally used the quarian squad to find out what Veetor would do. I wasn't sure which one was worse. If she hated Cerberus so much that she was willing to sabotage her own mission, she wasn't the right woman to save these colonists. But if Shepard had just used the quarian squad as bait…it meant something was off. Shepard would never have been so cold before, or so I thought, and she wouldn't have wanted Tali in danger. The meeting between Shepard and Tali was the first time I had seen warmth in Shepard's gaze, though she had spoken with indifference towards the other quarians. If she had guessed Tali would be fine and only Praza's squad would go off, it was very possible that she allowed those quarians to die for our benefit. Or I was simply overreacting. Shepard might not have even suspected Praza's betrayal, or she thought Tali would hold him back.

I ran a hand through my hair in frustration. _Would the old Shepard have done this?_ Damn it, I didn't know.

We made short work of the heavy mech and found the quarian, Veetor. Veetor even showed us video footage of the attack that showed the Collectors as the culprits. And still, I couldn't tear my thoughts away from her face, that beautiful, scarred, _terrifying_ face. It was that face that looked at me with such an unrestrained hatred that my hands trembled, but in the same moment could look at the dead quarians that were laid about us with nothing more than a slight frown. However, I cared little for the morality of her actions, only if those actions were those of the _real_ Commander Shepard. Such uncertainty I had never felt in my life, and I hated the feeling. How were the motivations of a single woman so difficult to ferret out? I finally brought my mind back to the conversation at hand, sighing.

"Alright, Shepard, let's grab the quarian and take him with us. He could have more information," I said.

"What?" Tali said, outraged. "You aren't taking him anywhere, especially not with Cerberus! He is _sick_ and needs medical attention. Shepard, please, if our friendship meant anything, you won't let Cerberus have Veetor. I'll send you his omni-tool data, anything you need." She was pleading.

"Tali," Shepard seemed taken aback by Tali's tone, "of course Veetor would go with you. As if I would let Lawson get what she wanted." I frowned at her. "Tali, our friendship still means a lot to me. Are…are you afraid of me?"

Tali considered the commander and responded, "I suppose I am a little. This is too good to be true, and Cerberus could have done any number of things to modify who you are, even if you do have Shepard's memories."

"Let me prove it to you, Tali. Come back to the Normandy with me, and help me stop these abductions. It'll be just like old times, and you'll see that I'm me," Shepard said.

"I wish I could Shepard, but I have a mission that is too important for me to abandon right now. But maybe…maybe when that's over," Tali said.

"I can't say I completely understand, Tali. I thought we were friends, and that you would come with me. I thought you might help me figure all this out. I…I've missed you and the crew," Shepard said. I wanted to laugh. Shepard had been conscious a whole two days and she had only been forced to experience their loss for two days. Compare that to Shepard's two year absence from Tali. In a dark moment of humor, I found the situation all too funny.

Tali looked over her shoulder as she was leaving with Veetor. "We're still friends, Shepard, and your crew has missed you too, more than you could know. You should…you should see Liara, when you get the chance. She's pushed us all away, but I kept an eye on her. She took your death a lot harder than the rest of us," Tali said and then fully left the room.

I watched Shepard's face and saw the pain that flashed across it. Her eyes held darkness and anger as her hopes were once again thrown across the rocks of this new world I had revived her to. Another friend walked away from Shepard, leaving her alone with Cerberus and an as yet undefined mission of helping some colonists. On top of it all, to hear of the heartbreak Liara had experienced must have made the commander want to rip someone apart. Only two crew members had truly known the extent of the commander's relationship with Liara T'Soni; it was no wonder Tali didn't understand Liara's grief.

I had actually worked with the asari when she was acquiring Shepard's body for us. I had eventually given a grudging respect to Liara's perseverance, but had witnessed firsthand the darkness that was eating her on the inside. It was that emotional commitment that had led me to discovering that the two had been in love, and my revelation allowed us to use her personal motivations to our gain. However, when she finally possessed Shepard's body, Liara's convictions had wavered. Liara saw the damage done, and didn't believe we would be able to bring Shepard back. Obviously, I forced her to turn the body over to us anyway, but Liara's last words to me continued to echo in my ears, giving voice to my doubts.

_You'll never do it, Ms. Lawson. All the science in the world can't bring my Shepard back to me. You may make her body get up, walk, and talk, but how are you going to bring back who she _was_? I can't look at that body and not see how the soul has fled. How do you plan to bring that back? Can science recreate compassion? Can science recreate love? Don't you dare promise to return my love to me, when I can see that it can't be done! _Liara had then paused and walked away from me, but turned and spoke again, quiet and determined. _And if you do manage to do the impossible—if that body gets up and walks again and is truly Shepard—then it will not have been your doing, Miranda. _

I still pondered over those words. Whose doing was it, if not mine? Was the woman breathing in front of me _truly_ the Shepard that Liara knew? Had I managed the impossible? Was a soul returned? I shook my head at these silly sentimental notions. There was no such thing as a soul; science had disproven that long ago. I had restored Shepard's brain and her body and therefore she was back. There was little else to be bothered with. _So why do I doubt if I brought back the _real _Shepard, if there is nothing else to it?_

While my thoughts had captured me, my body had moved along with Shepard. We were quickly aboard the shuttle and off to speak to the Illusive Man about our 'success'. Shepard kept a stoic face, but I could see the fire that blazed beneath the skin. She wanted someone to blame, someone to bleed.

I opened my mouth to say something reassuring, or just anything that might help, but the shuttle landed with a jolt. Shepard gave me a frown and stalked off the newly landed shuttle, not even pausing as she went off to talk to the boss.

XXX

I walked back to my quarters and shut the door, rubbing my temples as I tried to get rid of the pounding headache that had taken up residence behind my forehead. Freedom's Progress had confirmed the Illusive Man's suspicions about the Collectors, suspicions that he hadn't thought to share with me. It was infuriating. Sighing, I sat down at my desk and pulled up the feed to Shepard's cabin. It was a gross invasion of privacy, to have a camera watching her every move, but it was my job to make sure she was doing well. Cerberus didn't care about her personal feelings, or mine for that matter, but I promised myself I would back off on the observation once she cooled off and was fully committed to the mission. I was surprised when the cabin was empty. I could've sworn I had seen Shepard taking the elevator up. I soon found the reason when the woman herself barged into my cabin. Her eyes blazed and she walked right up to me and shoved her face close to mine.

"What. The. Fuck. Is. This?" Shepard asked, deathly quiet as she pointed to her face. I paled. Of course, it was the first time Shepard had looked in a mirror.

"We weren't sure. It would seem some of your genes mutated during the reconstruction, and we didn't know how fix it. It's harmless, really," I said.

"Harmless?" Shepard yelled in disbelief. "This is not my face! These are not my eyes and this isn't my hair! It's not harmless! I don't even look like me anymore. If you're going to rebuild someone, you could at least get the fucking details right! No wonder Tali almost didn't believe me!" The commander paused, calming slightly as she rubbed at her temples.

"I don't know who this is," Shepard said quietly, touching her face. I started to reach out, to try and comfort her, but she saw my arm move and flinched away. Her eyes filled with anger again as she took a step back, out of my reach.

"I'm sorry, Commander," I said. There was nothing I could do.

"I don't care," she growled. I watched as she stomped away and took the elevator back up to her cabin.

This time when I opened the camera feed to her cabin, the room wasn't empty, but the woman in the video was such a wreckage of anger and sorrow that I could hardly bear to look. I had a sudden sense that this was not something meant for my eyes; this was a Commander Shepard that few were ever supposed to see. I hit the minimize button quickly, but then pulled it back up and hit the red record. Later, I checked again and saw that Shepard was asleep, and I forwarded the video to Liara T'Soni. Was I messing with her? I wasn't sure. Was I actually starting to care? I hoped not.

Liara

It was late once again when my omni-tool gave another buzz. My heart stopped, knowing it would be from Miranda. I wasn't sure if I wanted to know more. I had spent two years mourning the love of my life, and there she sat in that picture. I had pulled the picture up over and over the past few days, unable to believe what my eyes were showing me. I missed her familiar violet eyes and unruly blonde hair, but the more I looked, the more I thought the new colors suited her. If she had been bald, it wouldn't have mattered because that was still her face, the face I never thought I'd see again. Finally, I realized that I had never expected Cerberus to succeed in any part of reviving Shepard. I never thought I would actually see Shepard again, and now there was the chance that I would see her again, and soon. But would it really be her? Her body could walk up to me, an empty shell given a fate worse than death.

Would it be better if she had truly returned? What would she think of me now? I shivered, thinking of those eyes raking over my body. My memories still brought forth the smell of almonds mixed with something earthy—the scent that followed Shepard out of the shower in the evenings. Shepard's body temperature was much warmer than mine, and her skin always felt like she had been sitting in sunshine. The heart in my chest ached at the thought of her in my arms. But I wasn't the same person. I had become colder, harsher. I had a goal, and I didn't want Shepard involved. I didn't want her to know how I had betrayed her, how I had given her body to the very people who had originally scarred it. But, even lost in memories, I couldn't contain my curiosity at what Miranda had sent me. This time it wasn't a picture, but a video. Shepard stood paused at her desk, both palms on its surface. I hit play.

Shepard paced back and forth, biotics crawling over her skin like fire. It reminded me of how she had reacted after Virmire, and I knew her mind was on violence. First she grabbed the chair and threw it against the wall. Next went the bed covers and everything on her desk. She threw the framed medal Cerberus had provided for her cabin. She reached for the picture next to it and was about to throw when she paused. She stopped, trembling as she held the picture in her hands. When she shifted positions, I could see over her shoulder that she held a picture of my face. I was momentarily shocked. However, it did make a certain amount of sense that Cerberus would provide it. The Illusive Man had figured out our relationship and exploited it mercilessly. Shepard took a few steps and then folded to the floor, still holding the picture. I could hear the sobs that wracked her body as she sat in the wreckage of her cabin.

"What am I, Liara? Am I even the same person? Is this real?" Shepard was saying. "I don't understand how I got here and why everyone has abandoned me. Why aren't you here, Liara? Why wasn't it your face that I opened my eyes to?" My heart broke at her words.

"They've got me fucking trapped and I don't see a way out, not without abandoning those colonists. I know I have to stay, but I don't trust them. They were the reason my life was ruined and now I'm forced to work with them. I'm so angry and confused."

"I wish I was back on the old Normandy. I wish I had you in my arms again, like that morning before the attack. I thought we were going to have so much time together; I love you so damn much. Where are you, Liara?

_Oh, my love, I miss you. Would you still love me if you saw what I had turned into, what I had to do to get over losing you? Where were you then, Evelyn? Why were you taken from me?_

I found that tears had started pouring down my face. The video had stopped and deleted itself off my omni-tool, Miranda's doing, but I could still see Shepard's face imprinted on my vision. I could hear the pain in her voice as she talked to the picture of me and questioned what had happened to her. _Evelyn. _The name still sent a tingle down my spine and heat in my cheeks. I had recovered Shepard's dog tags and there was her first name printed for all to see, the name she had never shared with anyone, including me. Maybe she had just never gotten the chance, or maybe she hadn't thought it meant anything. But it did. I picked up the blackened tags that I kept in my desk drawer and slid my thumb over the surface, feeling the engraving. Evelyn M. Shepard. _I wish I was there with you. I wish I was the Liara you remembered me being so we could pick up where we left off and live happily ever after. _I turned my omni-tool completely off, wishing I could do the same to the memories that tortured me with their happiness.


	4. Omega's Queen

**The hellish part of my week is finally over, which means time for a new chapter! Thanks to everyone for reading, and**** enjoy!**

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_Omega's Queen_

Miranda

_Omega: a pisshole if ever I saw one. Everything on this rock is dirty, from the walls to the actual people._ I was beginning to doubt whether the apartments here actually came with a shower already installed. The worst part was the smell that hung in the air. It was a mixture of dust, sweat, blood, and body odor, and the stench practically rolled into my face the moment I stepped off the Normandy. I instinctually rubbed at my clothing and my face, expecting there to be a layer of grime. Of course there wasn't, but it didn't stop me from trying anyway. It was no use; the atmosphere of Omega claims you the minute your toes touch the grating. I wasn't surprised our mission took us to the breeding ground for unsavory people, but I just hoped it was worth it. Aria, the illustrious Pirate Queen of Omega, was not a big fan of mine and we were going to need her help to find Archangel and Mordin Solus.

Well, speak of the Devil, and he will come. Not two seconds after exiting the Normandy, we were met by one of Aria's men requesting that we go 'introduce' ourselves. On Omega, that was a polite way of saying, "get your ass to Afterlife or Aria will shove her boot up it." Luckily, I had expected the welcome. Aria always did have a flair for the dramatic, from her popped red collar to the four-inch heels on her boots, and she liked to remind newcomers about who really controlled Omega. However, in hindsight, I probably should've warned Shepard, whose jaw instantly tensed at the command. Before Shepard could open her mouth to tell the batarian to fuck off, I told him that we would be there shortly, and Shepard's hatred towards me darkened her eyes. I knew I should feel worried that I would be going into multiple life or death situations with a woman that obviously hated me, but I wasn't. I, possibly irrationally, still trusted in Shepard's greater nature, and I thought the soldier in Shepard recognized that I was valuable to the mission, if nothing else.

Though Shepard's ever-present scowl re-adorned her face at my interruption, she pushed past me without another word to make her way to the end of the hall. Waiting for us stood Zaeed Massani, infamous mercenary and bounty hunter. He was not a gentle soul, by any means, but I found that he grew on me as the conversation went on. Shepard was naturally all business, but Zaeed wasn't intimidated by her in the least, which slightly endeared him to me. I was certain if her anger was ever directed at him he would piss his pants like the rest of us, but for now he was holding his own. We needed at least a few people that Shepard couldn't walk all over. Shepard waved for Zaeed to fall in line behind her and sent Jacob back to the ship on some excuse to get quarters fixed up for Zaeed. I smirked; I got the impression that Shepard just didn't like Jacob. She probably wanted to freeze him out the minute he admitted to leaving the Alliance willingly to join Cerberus.

Shepard led us through another door and Afterlife's neon lights burned our eyes the minute we walked out of the docking area. It was impossible to miss, and I could feel the bass of the club speakers through the soles of my shoes, though we were still meters away from the entrance. The line of pathetic nobodies trying to get into the club wound away from the door, and an obviously drunk man was trying to convince the bouncer that Aria herself had invited him. I watched as Shepard, never one for waiting in lines, marched straight up to the doorman and tapped her foot while he found her name on the list. I wondered what name the batarian had on his list. I somehow doubted Aria would put down "Commander Shepard," and her doorman still be able to remain calm. It was even stranger that the batarian was looking for a name at all when Shepard hadn't bothered to give it, instead choosing to stare at him until he opened the door. Maybe Aria had simply told the bouncer that an armored, angry woman would show up at the door, and to let her in. I stayed close on Shepard's heels as she made her way through the club, bee-lining for the stairs on the back wall. She observed everything around her as she went and only paused a moment when her gaze fell on one of the asari dancers whose skin was lovely shade of blue as she wriggled through the air. Shepard gave a sigh before quickly walking away.

Any regret Shepard might have been feeling was quickly wiped off of her face as we approached the staircase. I nodded my approval at her back where she couldn't see me; we would need to be on our game when dealing with Aria T'Loak. Fierce, beautiful, and incredibly dangerous, Aria ran Omega with a tight fist. She wouldn't necessarily involve herself in the day to day running of gang activity and the like, but woe to the gang leader that didn't pay out her cut of the profits. Some liked to view her as a type of mafia leader, but I thought the Pirate Queen title more accurate. Her leadership worked with a type of tribute system, where money was given to Aria simply for being the leader. In return, Omega's inhabitants were safe because larger enemies didn't dare go against Aria. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement and the asari lorded over her kingdom from a private loft looking over Afterlife. I saw her watching as we approached her domain.

Guns were immediately drawn, but the motion was more of a formality, a curtsy before a unique brand of queen. I watched Aria feign disinterest as one of her men confirmed Shepard's identity. Aria's smooth violet skin went on for miles, covered by skintight leather that left little to the imagination. Small swatches of skin were left completely bare, tantalizing you with the prospect of revealing more. Her shoulders were covered with her trademark white jacket that only reached down to her waist. Aria had chiseled features, dark eyes, and a slight pout that easily transformed into a predatory grin; everything about her projected an aura of power, sex, and death, something that made her ridiculously attractive in a twisted sort of way. Despite my rather indifferent sexual interest in asari, it was hard to prevent a physical reaction to the sight that was Aria. I was already feeling my pulse start to speed up and the bottom of my stomach grew warmer. Aria knew the effect she had on others, and she gave me a smirk before settling her attention back on Shepard.

Shepard was doing her own assessment of the situation, albeit without the physical appraisement of Aria, like I had done. I knew her mind was working to turn this situation to her advantage, a situation where Aria clearly had the upper hand. Every scenario was a battle, and Shepard was always the tactician; she particularly hated to lose. I saw Shepard note every guard Aria kept around her, lingering on the ones staying closer to Aria's person. She shoved one of these said guards out of her way and my mouth dropped open when I heard one of her armor clasps click. Fingers moving nimbly across the junctions, Shepard swiftly removed the armor plates off of her torso and arms, but left the plating on her legs and the accompanying ammunition belt. Underneath Shepard wore only her form hugging underarmor, which showed every ripple of muscle over her stomach as she moved. The smell of almond mixed with a dark earthy undertone and a hint of vanilla washed over my senses, making me forget how to breathe, but Shepard ignored the gasp I involuntarily made. _Damn it, Miranda, stop blushing like a schoolgirl and pull yourself together. You rebuilt that woman; you've already seen her naked for goodness' sake_, I thought. But thinking of Shepard naked was exactly the wrong thing to do, and I cast my gaze around searching for anything that could pull my mind to where it belonged. I latched on to Aria, who surprisingly seemed to be having a similar reaction to Shepard as I was.

Shepard leaned the armor pieces against one side of the couch and took a seat much closer to Aria than where the Pirate Queen had motioned. I watched in envy at how well Shepard's power play had worked. Aria sat, looking slightly amused, immediately to the left of Shepard, who had staked a claim to the couch instead of allowing herself to be directed. It was very gracefully done, and I think I even saw Aria smile before schooling herself back into her relaxed and languid posture. Aria let Shepard ask all the questions she wanted, but I found her to be _unusually_ helpful. Shepard was attractive and had one-upped her in the previous game of wills, but I knew Aria never gave anything away for free, no matter the person. I continued to wait for Aria's requital, but it still hadn't come when Shepard shifted on the couch to leave. Suddenly, Aria had moved closer to Shepard and wove her fingers into her auburn hair. The gesture was intimate and I saw Shepard's face freeze, the bridge of her nose twitching as she forced herself not to push the hand away.

Aria's voice was low when she spoke, practically whispering in Shepard's ear. "You know I met that little girlfriend of yours, Liara T'Soni. I would have fucked her myself if she hadn't been all worked up over finding _your_ dead body. I find it curious that you're here without her, seeing what she did for you. I even watched her crush a batarian with her biotics in that very corner. A maiden running around with that kind of anger, well, she must have one hell of a story, or perhaps one hell of a heartbreak. Which one do you think it is?"

_There it is, _I thought_. A strange sort of payment._

Shepard moved her face closer to Aria's, her cheeks flushed with anger and her jaw tight. "Don't you _dare_ mention Liara to me," Shepard growled through gritted teeth, giving Aria her answer. She tried to stand up off the couch, but Aria tightened her grip in Shepard's hair and pulled her back. She boldly ran a hand across Shepard's stomach, eliciting an actual growl from Shepard's throat. Aria made no answer, but seemed to understand that she was about to push Shepard too far. The hand locked in Shepard's hair pulled her face to look at her again.

"Don't fuck with _me,_ Shepard. Your little pureblood crossed a lot of lines, and she's making enemies too big for her. Call this a friendly warning," Aria stated, untangling her hand from Shepard's hair and pushing the human away. Shepard immediately stood up and ran a hand through her hair, trying to smooth away the invasion to her space.

"Why the hell do you care, Aria?" Shepard asked. Aria looked up at her and rolled her eyes as Shepard began to fit her armor back on. I strode silently to her side and helped with the harder clasps, a movement I know Shepard only allowed because she wanted away from Aria as quickly as possible.

"Maybe T'Soni grew on me," Aria replied.

"Liar," Shepard said scowling. We had finished the last of the armor clasps, and Shepard brushed my hands away. I walked back to stand next to Zaeed, who winked at me, and I gave him an arrogant sneer that only made him chuckle.

"I certainly don't see why my motivations matter. We're done here; you can leave," Aria waved her away.

Shepard frowned, but didn't wait to be told twice. She ambled quickly down the steps, and Zaeed and I fell into step behind her. I threw one last longing look over at Aria, who was smiling on her couch, before I realized that Shepard was heading straight for the mercenary recruiter standing at the side of the club. He was our way to Archangel. I threw an arm out, stopping Shepard's advance.

"Shouldn't we be heading to the quarantine zone first? Having the professor to create a countermeasure for the seeker swarms should be our top priority; Archangel can wait," I said.

If eyes could burn through flesh, I would no longer have an arm; such was the intensity of Shepard's glare for touching her. "Last I heard, Lawson, the salarian is safe in his clinic. Archangel, on the other hand, has three mercenary gangs actively trying to kill him. If he's been holed up in that building for as long as Aria thinks, he likely hasn't had enough food or water either. My _professional_ opinion is that we go save the one who is more likely to die in the next few hours," Shepard scorned, waiting until I dropped my arm to continue walking.

"You know, I have a first name," I muttered.

"I know, Lawson," Shepard called over her shoulder.

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*_Original chapter updated 2/20/15_


	5. Red

**Alright, so I know that was the longest it's ever taken me to post a new chapter. However, I think this chapter is worth it! I found myself a wonderful beta reader, AblatedCrayon, and our work slowed down the posting a bit. You may also notice that the first five chapters have been updated. My beta helped me edit them, so I provided the finished works. Not to worry, though, I made sure there were no major content changes, and you don't necessarily need to go back and reread them if you don't want to. Enjoy the new chapter!**

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**_Red_**

Garrus

The air had become foul, saturated as it was with the smell of blood and bodies, but the mercenaries continued to send men over like cattle to a slaughter. The usual Omega lighting was ominous and red, a warning for those about to cross the bridge. The mercenaries had foolishly planned to come against me in my own base, a spectacular little complex that allowed access at only two points, the bridge and some tunnels. Anyone coming across the bridge fell directly under the crosshairs of my rifle. I hadn't had time to close off the lower tunnels, but the mercenaries hadn't found them yet. In the meantime, I had large food stores, plenty of thermal clips, and the best sniper position a turian could ask for. All of my wounds had been minor and I treated them easily with medi-gel, but I didn't have a solution for how tired I was. I had used a few stimulants before to keep myself awake, but had quickly run out and now was keeping my eyes open by sheer willpower and some bursts of adrenaline every time a new scouting party came over from the mercenary camp. I knew they were waiting for me to slip up, and they pushed against my defenses every hour.

It was strange that it had been so long since the last group had come over the bridge. I thought it must mean the mercs had a plan, and they were waiting to execute it-and me. I wondered if they had found the lower levels and my stomach dropped. There was no way I would survive if they came swarming in at me on both sides. I braced my rifle on the edge of the balcony, using the scope to peer into the camp. There was nothing too unusual going on; everyone looked relaxed. I guessed I wouldn't have another group coming at me for a little more time at least. A Blue Suns merc patrolling their barricade momentarily slipped, tumbled out of the barrier protected area, and fell onto the bridge. I let off a quick shot, allowing a small smile at the red cloud left behind. That got their attention, and the mercs starting moving around anxiously.

There was a small group standing off to the side with unmarked armor: freelancers. I couldn't flatter myself that I had killed so many of their men that they didn't have any more to use, so the freelancers must serve a purpose in the next advance against individuals in the freelance group caught my attention. They hadn't seemed bothered by my earlier display at all, and, in fact, looked incredibly bored with the whole situation. The other freelancers were looking at the three with what seemed to be hostility or fear; with those human faces, I could never be sure. One figure in pitch black armor stood in a familiar pose with arms crossed and weight leaned back onto one leg. I felt my chest give a small flutter when I realized what the posture reminded me of: Shepard.

_Damn, I wish she were here. She would get me out of this mess. Hell, she never would have let me walk into it_, I thought, keeping my eye on the figure that was clearly a human woman.

_Aw, Garrus, you give me too much credit. I totally would have let you walk into this...as long as I was walking with you_, Shepard said. Great, now I was so tired I was hearing voices in my head.

_Do not respond, Garrus Vakarian. You're only crazy if you talk back, _I thought to myself.

An older, scarred man wearing an impressive suit of armor trailed a dark haired woman wearing a skintight white jumpsuit. The dark haired woman spoke to my black armored figure and and then pointed in my direction. The other woman, who was clearly in charge, turned towards me and removed her helmet. Red hair tumbled out of the helmet and I saw the emerald eyes lock on me, at the scope I had directly on her. Her lips twitched up in what I could only call a challenge, but my stomach twisted at the sick joke being played on me by the universe. I had wanted Shepard here, but instead I received an eerie look-alike that was here to kill me.

_You did ask for me, Garrus. She doesn't even look that bad. Shepard/Vakarian could definitely take her_, the ghost said.

Inspecting her closely, I realized she might even be the first challenge I would really receive during this slow fight for my life. The mercenaries had been careless and their moves unintelligent, which allowed them to walk right into my bullet. This woman, Red, I named her in my mind, looked sharp and carried enough guns and explosives to take on a platoon. If she made it across the bridge, I had no doubt I would be in for the fight of my life.

_Maybe Shepard/Vakarian could have taken her, but it's just Vakarian here and it looks like I'm about to get my ass kicked,_ I snapped back, before realizing I had told myself not to respond.

I could see the massive, well-used shotgun attached at her lower back and made a note: up-close fighter. The human was short, lean, and definitely not the normal body type for the heavy hits of close range fighting, but she walked with confidence that told me her looks would be deceiving. My mandibles twitched with unease; Shepard had been the same. She had always seemed too small to pack the punch that she did, and with her simple, dark armor, it was easy to overlook her until she was blazing across the battlefield.

_So you did care..._Shepard's voice crooned.

_Oh, shut up,_ I shot back. _You aren't even real._

Red finally turned away from me, towards the batarian waving at the freelancers to move forward. The batarian had turned back to the gunship repairs, and I watched Red slowly step towards him. I tore my eyes away from her to survey my bridge and quickly dropped three armored figures that hadn't bothered to move into cover. The rest had ducked behind the concrete blocks littering the walkway, and I settled in to wait for them to move. I flicked my scope back to where I had seen Red. She was gone, but the batarian was on the ground twitching with electricity. My mandibles flicked in surprise. Why would Red attack someone in the group she was working for?

_C'mon, Garrus, I know you're tired, but it's pretty obvious to me. She does look a lot like me..._Shepard mumbled in my head.

_Funny, Shepard, but you're dead. Joker watched you get spaced_, I replied. _Besides, she doesn't even have that red N7 stripe on her arm that you wore everywhere. _

I scanned nervously to find Red. My confusion deepened when she popped over the barricade and didn't make straight for my building. Instead, she and her two companions started attacking the other freelancers, flushing them from cover and making them easy targets for my rifle. I watched Red zero in on her last opponent and biotics crackled around her body. The sheer power of the biotics rippled around her, shifting her so that she looked like two people to my slow eyes. Then there was a noise, a thump that echoed out as her biotics propelled her forward into the last freelancers. The force of her hit alone snapped the mercenary's neck and the body flew several feet before slumping against a wall.

"Shit, Lawson, what was that?" Red's words reverberated up to my balcony. The familiar voice added another twist to my guts as tendrils of a crazy hope entered my over exhausted mind.

"While I was instructed to bring you back exactly as you were, we updated your biotic implants with the most advanced model on the market, the L5. It is also a safe assumption that your cybernetics have made you stronger and faster to heal," the dark haired human said. Even I could hear the glowing in her voice.

"Yeah, yeah, cool it Victor Frankenstein. We're not in a lab anymore," Red said, receiving a glare from Lawson.

_Oho! A comedian! I do like a woman with a sense of humor. Let her be me. Let her be me_, Shepard's voice started repeating in my mind, echoing the hope I was fostering in my chest.

For a moment, I actually let myself believe that Red could be Shepard. It just wasn't possible for two different people to be that similar. I knew that voice, that cadence, and that face. I could see the familiar lines of a frown that pulled her face down in exasperation. But doubt whispered in my other ear as I thought about the batarian next to the gunship. He hadn't been innocent by any means, and he was the enemy, but I would never have pictured Shepard killing someone like that. I could see her putting a quick shot through the head so he couldn't fix the gunship, but electrocuting someone inside their own armor? That just wasn't Shepard's style. My tired mind was obviously playing tricks on me.

_No need to judge just off that. Maybe she was just, uh, having a bad day? _The voice asked hopefully.

I snorted at my own imagination, _Please, you didn't have bad days. You just had days when people pissed you off a little more than usual. _

_What?_ The voice sounded indignant. _I was not always that grumpy. Don't you remember…_

_We were taking a small shore leave on the Citadel and the team had decided to meet for some fun at Flux. I sat with Shepard at the table while the others went off to dance. She stretched out her muscles as she leaned back in her chair, and we both laughed at Tali trying to get Wrex to dance. The quarian was engulfed by the massive size of the krogan, but she had coaxed him into a reluctant shuffle, much to his dismay. _

"_Why aren't you dancing?" I asked Shepard. _

"_If you ever have the honor of seeing me dance, you'll understand why I save it for special occasions," Shepard smirked. I fidgeted uncomfortably. _

"_So, uh, wanna go shoot something?" I replied a little nervously. Shepard shot me a grateful grin._

"_Right behind you," Shepard proclaimed. _

_We grabbed a bunch of empty bottles from behind the bar and we headed towards the roof exit. I quickly motioned for Wrex to join us, and he gratefully broke away from his enthusiastic quarian dance partner. Soon, we were happily picking off bottle targets on the roof._

_We began setting the bottles up in crazier locations as the night went on, daring each other to hit them. Eventually, I started slightly nudging Shepard's rifle when she went to take a shot, careful that she wouldn't notice. She would breathe, line up her shot, and right when she pulled the trigger I would give a featherlight push. Her face grew angrier and angrier every time she missed, understandably confused why she couldn't hit anything. It was all I could do to restrain my laughter. _

"_Damn it, Garrus, you pain in the ass!" Shepard exclaimed when she finally caught me. _

_Before I knew it, the woman had tackled me to the ground and we playfully struggled against each other. When Wrex came barreling in to intervene, she gave a war cry and jumped on him too. The sight of that tiny human woman clinging to a giant krogan's back was one I would never forget. I went at Wrex from the front and soon we had all collapsed on the ground participating in what could only be called giggling. _

I was smiling when the voices from below called me out of my reverie.

"I would've thought you would be happy with the improvements. You're better than before," Lawson frowned.

Red laughed. "There is no better than before, Lawson. Put me back on the SR-1 with my standard issue human body any day. I'd still kick your ass."

_The SR-1? She couldn't possibly mean…_My thoughts trailed off as the other human spoke.

"Can't believe you two are still bloody talking about this. You're just kicking yourself in the ass, Miranda. We both know Shepard's too goddamn stubborn to admit Cerberus can do anything right."

My thoughts tumbled over themselves, blocking out the response from Miranda. All I could hear was the man's voice saying _Shepard_. The group had made their way up the stairs and I could hear them talking as they got closer to my door. The door slid open and I watched as Red stepped inside, pulling off her helmet. Up close, it was even more obvious that it had to be her. The colors were wrong, but everything else fell together just like I remembered. Red hair instead of blonde still fell about her face where the unruly strands had escaped from the pins, and her eyes shone like they always had after a fight. She even had the same mods on her shotgun, mods that she and I had discussed at length aboard the Normandy SR-1. A ghost stood in front of me.

_It is me, her, whatever! I told you so! How are we going to greet her? 'Been a long time, Shepard'? No, that's stupid; the woman was dead. How about, 'Where the fuck have you been'? I vote no on that one too-way too strong. Maybe 'Hey, buddy, ol' pal. Whatcha been up to'? _I mentally silenced the voice blathering on in my head.

"Shepard?" I asked. "Commander Shepard?"

"Yeah?" She raised an eyebrow. "Archangel?" she questioned back.

I was surprised at her use of that name, before I realized I hadn't taken my helmet off. I pulled it off and let my grin match the one spreading across Shepard's face.

"Garrus! I can't believe it's you! How the hell did you manage to make this much trouble?" Shepard exclaimed. I let the sound of it wash over me, happy now that it was real and not some weird part of my imagination.

"Look who's talking, Shepard. You're supposed to be dead. I did, however, take my example from the best troublemaker I know," I said, winking at Shepard as I answered her questions in order.

I stepped away from balcony edge and wrapped Shepard in a display of emotion that surprised even me. The feel of her reassured me that Shepard was, in fact, alive. She was still so small, yet remarkably solid, and I held her away from me to get another look. My thought flew wildly about, trying to make sense of the fact that Shepard was actually right here in front of me. I wanted to leap for joy and cry at the same time, unusual nonsense for a turian.

"I guess you're here to pull my ass out of the fire again, eh, Shepard?" I laughed. "Just like old times."

"I should've known you'd get yourself into trouble without me, Garrus," Shepard replied, giving me a light punch on the shoulder. She was smiling, but I noticed a new edge to her voice that hadn't been there before.

"Well, without that spectacular geth target practice you cooked up, I had to find something to keep my skills sharp," I chucked as I gave her another wink.

Shepard laughed. "I think we can consider them sharpened. Let's see about getting you out of here," she said.

As we started discussing our plan to escape the complex, I let myself relax, just a little. I was relieved to have a team with me, and to finally have some hope of getting out of this place alive. However, I continued to spot the hardened glint that was flickering in her eyes. It was a stark contrast between Shepard now and the Shepard who had tackled me and Wrex on that roof. She had worn the same expression after Virmire before she tucked it away behind the cold exterior of Commander Shepard, and it worried me that her emotions now waged war so openly across her face.

It wasn't until the dark haired woman, Miranda, lightly touched Shepard's arm with a suggestion that I saw the familiar Commander snap into place. I almost chuckled as Shepard levelled a cold look at Miranda that anyone on the Normandy SR-1 would have recognized. We had all received the look at one time of the other, when we accidentally got too friendly for Shepard's comfort; and Shepard's comfort had always been at arm's length. So wonderfully awkward, she had never realized how much her crew really loved her. Miranda stepped back from the commander with displeased scowl, but not before I saw the concern for Shepard in her eyes. The emotion made me curious, since it was coupled with Shepard's obvious dislike.

_I was not _that _awkward_, the voice grumbled.

_You were, too. Now, I am overly tired and Shepard's voice just happened to be the one chosen for my moment of craziness. When I escape this, we will never speak of it again. I mean, _I _will never speak of it again. Because you aren't real. Stop talking to yourself, Garrus!_

My exhausted brain shook away the trails of irrelevant thoughts when we heard Eclipse scouts making their way towards the base. I clapped Shepard on the back, and she grinned at me, face flushed with excitement for the coming fight. I knelt at the railing, balancing my rifle as I lined up my first shots, and soon heard the familiar explosions of Shepard's biotics and her intermittent yells of triumph. Though I was still in danger and hadn't slept in days, I felt better than I had in a long time. Shepard was back. Soon I would be home on the Normandy, even if it was a copy. Shepard smiled at me from across the battlefield, raising her fingers for her number of kills. I marked mine off on my talons as well. Just like old times.


	6. Betting On You

**Well hey there everyone! First let me apologize for the long delay on this chapter. Life and school got in the way. However, this is almost double the length of my previous chapters, so I hope that helps to make up for the wait. As a side note, you'll notice this story is down a chapter from when I first published it. This is not a mistake. I removed the original chapter one because it didn't actually fit in with my story. I had been hasty in my original publishing. However, for those of your that had a chance to read it, I think you'll agree that it contributed very little to the story. I can promise that something like this will ****_never_**** happen again. I did not take removing content lightly. **

**Many thanks to my reviewers and those of you that have followed and favorited the story! Your contributions really help me keep going with this! Finally, a special shout out is also in order for my lovely beta, Ablated Crayon. Your help with my writing is without equal :] **

_**Chapter 6**_

_**Betting on You**_

_A cry rang out into the room as Karin Chakwas rubbed the newborn into a soft pink. She cut the umbilical cord and took a soft cloth to gently clean the baby. She smiled at the blonde shock of hair that was so similar to her mother's before holding the baby up for Hannah Shepard to see._

"_It's a beautiful baby girl," Karin crooned._

_Hannah turned her head away. "Great. John wanted a girl. It's like he's pissing on me even after the divorce."_

_Karin frowned at her while continuing to rock the little baby. "I know you never wanted children, and John obviously wanted to take the baby. Why wouldn't you let him?"_

"_Call it a silly moment of sentimentality. Neither one of us will be able to give her much of our time; it's the truth of military life. I'm a higher pay grade, so I thought I could at least give her more than him. Besides, I got you in the divorce, Karin. If anyone is going to be a real mother to this child, we both know it's going to be you. You fell in love with this kid the minute I told you I was pregnant," Hannah said, propping herself up on an elbow._

"_Really? It's not because you were so mad at John that you just wanted to do anything to spite him?" Karin asked sternly. Hannah looked away with guilt; Karin had always read her so well._

"_It's done now. The papers are signed and he's on the other side of the galaxy," Hannah said._

"_It's not too late, Hannah. I know you wouldn't want to keep a baby out of spite," Karin frowned. Hannah waved her concerns away, clearly done with the conversation._

"_Look, I've made up my mind. The kid is mine. Now, will you get me patched up? I want to go back on duty tomorrow," Hannah said._

"_Aren't you going to name her first?" Karin asked in disbelief._

"_I'm not a mother, Karin," Hannah said as she slid to the side of the bed. She closed her eyes and rubbed the back of her neck. "Maybe her middle name could be Marie, after my mother."_

"_A lovely name, Hannah. What about her first name?" Karin asked._

"_I…I don't know," Hannah stuttered. "Karin maybe?"_

_Karin softened at her words, but shook her head. "I appreciate the thought, but I don't think it's quite right for this little one. What about Evelyn? It was the name I had picked out when…if I ever had a daughter," Karin swallowed hard._

"_Evelyn Marie Shepard," Hannah rolled the name around. She looked over to where Karin still held the baby. Karin held Evelyn out for Hannah to take, but Hannah turned her head. Karin clutched the baby back to her chest and crooned in her ear, swaying gently._

"_It's not exactly the name of a future soldier," Hannah replied coldly, never imagining a child of hers could choose another profession._

"_I think this one will be more than just a soldier, Hannah," Karin said._

XXX

Garrus

I woke up with my face on fire. Maybe I was being dramatic, but the whole damn side hurt. I reached a hand up to touch the offending area before a soft hand sternly pushed mine down. Bright fluorescents glared down into my vision, and I blinked as a pair of silver-blue eyes appeared above me.

"Chakwas," I croaked. "I should've known you'd be here too."

"Good to see you're awake, Garrus," the doctor smiled. "I've got some synthetic grafts holding the side of your face together, but it'll scar a bit."

"Damn, all those turian ladies lining up at my door are going to be so disappointed," I chuckled, trying to wink and failing when it pulled on the injured side of my face.

Chakwas laughed as she patted me on the shoulder. She slid an arm around my back, and helped me prop myself up on the pillows. In addition to the pain in my face, my whole body felt heavy and it took most of my willpower to keep my eyelids open after going so long without sleep. Although I had to admit that the smallest amount of rest had worked wonders and my mind already felt clearer. My eyes scanned the medbay, noticing how much brighter it was to the one I remembered aboard the SR-1. Some Cerberus lackey had also gone a little overboard with the Cerberus logo, which was apparently stuck to any surface they could reach. I gave a bemused grimace at the show of possession.

"I have to say, Doc, I never would have imagined you or Shepard on a Cerberus vessel. I seem to remember our run-ins with them being unpleasant," I said, fixing the doctor with a stare, "though my memories could be rusty after all this time."

Chakwas bristled and gave me a light smack on the shoulder, her face trying to look stern but breaking under a smile. I had always been fond of the older lady, who bustled about like a mother to the whole ship.

"I imagine my reasoning for being here is much the same as yours, my dear. They told me Shepard was alive and needed a Chief Medical Officer on her new ship. Naturally, I came running," Chakwas explained.

"Not to mention that if some Cerberus prick were down here, Shepard would never get her injuries checked out," I laughed.

"Ah, yes, the stubborn child always hated even the most routine checkups. She and Jeff share the same problem, and I've got my hands full chasing after the two of them," Chakwas said, trying to act exasperated, but I knew she really enjoyed it. I vividly recalled one of Shepard's stints in the medbay where she was so determined that she was fine that Chakwas stayed awake for an entire day to make sure Shepard wouldn't start pulling out IV's. She was the only one who could slap Shepard's hands away and actually live to tell about it. The crazy old woman was smiling the whole time.

"And Joker's here too? Honestly, Doc, no one here is worried about working with Cerberus?" I asked, shaking my head gently in disbelief.

"I think you'll find that working with Cerberus has made the commander rather angry, Garrus. She knows it's for the greater good, as do we all, but her experience on Akuze is not easily forgiven," Chakwas hesitated. "However, we all realize that Cerberus will likely betray us in the future."

"Ah, so we're playing nice, but sleeping with our guns? Unfortunately, that sounds about right for one of Shepard's rodeos. About Joker though: he and the commander, they're…alright?" I asked.

Chakwas smiled at me kindly before she answered, "If you're concerned about Shepard holding a grudge against Joker, you'll be quite relieved to hear she has done no such thing. Joker had, unfortunately, spent the last two years wallowing in his guilt, the details of which I leave to you to find on your own, but the commander walked right up to him and said, 'Thank God I saved you.' They've been cracking jokes about the old days ever since, though I have noticed that their interactions are still a little tense."

"Good. I was afraid after…" I said, but Chakwas interrupted.

"She's hurting, Garrus, but she's still our Shepard," she said, her voice rough. She jumped at the sound of the door opening, her hand gripping the back of the chair she stood behind.

"How's my favorite turian vigilante doing, Doc?" Shepard called, making her entrance into the room. She had changed out of her armor into a casual black uniform that bore a Cerberus logo over her heart. I smiled as I thought about all the times Shepard had probably considered burning that logo off. She crossed to where Chakwas stood, placing a hand on the doctor's shoulder with a smile.

"And how many turian vigilantes do you actually know, Commander?" I teased while trying to sit up straighter and look alert.

"I'm starting to think I know one too many," she grinned. "You're a little more trouble than you're worth!"

"Hardly!" I laughed, stopping when my face hurt. "I seem to remember pulling an Alliance soldier's ass out of the fire enough to justify this little detour."

"Well, I'm not Alliance anymore, Garrus," Shepard murmured. Her expression darkened almost immediately.

"I know; I'm not blind. What's up with that anyway? I thought the Alliance would be thrilled to see their poster girl returned from the dead," I chucked, trying to lighten her up again.

Shepard stepped away from Chakwas and started to pace next to my bed in agitation. "I did do my homework, Garrus. The Alliance wasn't doing anything about these colony abductions. Cerberus spent two years putting me back together, and then they asked me to fight an enemy that everyone else is ignoring. How could I say no?" Shepard said.

"So, you feel like you owe something to Cerberus?" I asked as my face twitched in disgust.

Shepard turned her glare towards me, halting her frantic pacing. "Hell no! They ruined my life and took the lives of 50 other marines on Akuze. The least they could do is rebuild me," Shepard exclaimed. "I know I'm doing this for the right reasons. It just doesn't feel that way yet."

Shepard gave Chakwas a small smile before starting towards the door. "You rest up, Garrus. When you're feeling better, we'll test drive the bar over in the lounge," Shepard smirked, all previous signs of her emotional battle wiped from her face.

I gave a weak wave before collapsing back against the pillows with my thoughts racing. Shepard had been so warm and unreserved. Hell, she had even let me hug her back on Omega. Chakwas saw my confusion and gave me a small smile.

"Wow, just when I was getting used to her ice queen routine, she drops it. What's that all about?" I asked.

"Maybe she's finally started making exceptions for old friends," Chakwas suggested gently.

I did my best to rest, but my scales were itching to look around the new ship. My restless flip flopping on my bed finally seemed to annoy Chakwas, who suggested I was probably strong enough to walk to the mess for a fresh glass of water. The medications she had given me had made my mouth so dry and I couldn't seem to drink enough water to make it feel normal.

I said my thanks to Chakwas and walked carefully out of the medbay. My muscles felt stiff after the overuse and the stimulants I had used to keep myself going in the base. I hesitated against the medbay door, gathering my breath and letting the spinning in my head stop before ruefully admitting to myself that I might need an extra day before I could report for field action. Pushing off the wall again, my eyes fell on the mess, and I was overwhelmed with the startling sameness it shared with the original Normandy. It wasn't like the medbay where it only looked a little similar. This was almost the exact space I remembered, but with an additional divider and a kitchen where Aleko's station used to be. I was hit with a moment of pleasant homecoming, followed closely by longing when I saw the Cerberus crew and was reminded that I wasn't on the SR-1. Those crew members sat around the table, but they grew quiet as I drew closer to the table, looking at me with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. For a moment, I was lost in a feeling of déjà vu; the same thing had happened to me before, during my first few days on the Normandy.

_It was my second day on board the Normandy, and I would be lying if my scales weren't itching with excitement. The opportunity to go trawling about the galaxy with orders to take down that asshole Saren was one I never thought I would be offered. I was even given the chance to work with my own bonafide Spectre, Commander Shepard. Boy was it a relief after constantly chafing my ass against the red tape in C-Sec. The air on the Normandy felt light as I tried to keep myself from grinning like an idiot. Turians are drilled to be serious soldiers one-hundred percent of the time, but, hell, I had never been good at that anyway._

_My moment of giddiness slowly ebbed away when I walked into the mess. The previously raucous Alliance soldiers had become subdued, their faces pinched with distrust. Crew members I had pleasantly talked with an hour before averted their eyes, hoping I wouldn't notice them as they darted glances to their friends to see their reaction. I schooled my face into a look of disinterest and steadily walked to retrieve my dinner where it sat to the right. The red tray, bowl, and plate marked it clearly as dextro food, and a second one lay beside it for Tali. Before, I had thought stark difference in coloring a useful precaution, but now it served only to mark me as foreign, alien. Only years of training kept my mandibles from flaring out with my irritation, not, I figured, that the humans would recognize the sign anyway. I did manage to commandeer a spot at the corner of the table, and watched as the fearless Alliance soldiers tried to subtly put more space between us. The bitter taste in my mouth only grew when my eyes fell on Ashley, who was whispering with Navigator Pressly and stealing glances over at me. Fine, I guess saving your ass in the field doesn't automatically warrant some table manners. Noted, Chief Williams, I thought wryly to myself. Damn, if I didn't feel like shit in that moment. I was a scary turian that apparently could be taken down by childish lunchroom politics._

_I felt her presence before I saw her. I turned my head to see the commander come around the elevator wall, where she paused briefly to survey the activity in the mess. I saw the edges of her mouth quirk up briefly at the wild soldiers, who had quickly resumed their usual behavior after I had settled into my place apart from them. The Alliance was Shepard's life; it gave her a place in the world. I had seen that look of contentment on many a soldier's face, but I had yet to feel the safety in it that so many spoke of. I might look at a group of turian soldiers and become awash with a feeling of nostalgia for my military days, but I had always hungered for more. I wanted to see more, do more than the clear lines of the military allowed me to. I wondered if it were the same for the commander, but that maybe she could feel such warmth for the confines of military life because she somehow managed to sit outside of the lines drawn for her. If there was such thing as Alliance royalty, it would be Shepard. Her blood ran Alliance blue through several generations on each side, she had influence with several people high up in the Alliance brass, plus she was one of the youngest ever to complete the N7 program, an accomplishment even turians could admire. _

_When the Council had been considering Shepard as a Spectre candidate, they had been provided her complete service record by the Alliance. Considering my family's pull in the Turian Matriarchy, and the fact that I'd rarely asked for favors, it only took a few phone calls to get Councilor Sparatus to send over the file. Afterwards, I had spent hours enraptured by its contents. However, it wasn't her medals or scores that caught my attention. It was how wonderfully imperfect the file was. She had several write ups, as well as numerous displeased notes from superior officers, but they had become buried and unnoticed. She apparently didn't work well with the officers put above her, but instead of trying to break her, the Alliance had simply given her higher commands. Had I discovered this before meeting her, I would've frowned in displeasure, thinking it obvious corruption and favoritism. Now I knew this only happened with Shepard because, well, she worked. I doubted the Alliance had yet to find an assignment that Shepard couldn't pull off with flawless precision; it was a wonder she wasn't a cocky jerk. I envied that pure confidence in abilities that allowed her to face down a superior and know they wouldn't do anything but give her a slap on the wrist._

_Shepard's eyes finally hit me and traced over the invisible line that the other soldiers had drawn between me and them, and I could see the change in her mood immediately. Her brows furrowed down and her lips pressed down until they became white with anger. It was a surprising reaction, given all I had come to know about the commander, not only through personal experience but anecdotes from some of the more friendly Alliance soldiers. Her personal interactions with the general crew was most often described as aloof or cold, and I was told she didn't like involving herself in their personal matters unless it was affecting her mission. Therefore, I completely expected her to grab her portion of food and retreat into the quiet solitude of her cabin, where turians and their friendless lunches didn't exist. Imagine my surprise when I heard her walk up behind me with her steaming tray of food and move to sit, not across from me, but directly to my right and so close that our elbows touched. The grumbles from the other soldiers started almost immediately; the worst offender's uniform name tag read "Fern". I wasn't great at telling human ages, but Fern looked young, younger than Shepard, and his eyes burned with contempt as he glared at me._

"_You know how they picked the crew for this ship, Garrus?" Shepard asked. Her voice was kept low, rumbling out conversationally at a level that only I could hear. I shook my head in answer to her question so she continued, "The Alliance wanted only the best for the Normandy's crew; image is a powerful thing, after all. We wouldn't want the future Cat-6's running around, yeah? So they let Captain Anderson hand pick most of his crew, and filled in the lower, less important spots with basic personnel that had good records. Anderson chose almost all hardened veterans that he either knew of by personal experience or secondhand because of their exceptional reputation. He chose a good bunch, you know."_

_I could see the anger that built beneath the surface of Shepard's skin, hardening into the ice that filled her eyes. Her face at that moment reminded me of the brief encounter I had had with Hannah Shepard, her mother, on the Citadel. The woman had been visiting the Citadel and I ran into her while she was yelling at some diplomat, her emotions boiling over into fire hot rage. It was strange to see her daughter react in an opposite manner; she became calmer as her cold anger froze her features into a mask that mocked others with its serenity when the situation called for anything but. That mask now turned toward Fern as the commander continued her description of the crew._

"_You see, Fern there was one of the exceptions in this process," Shepard began, her voice becoming slightly more audible. Fern had caught the mention of his name and his posture showed how obviously he had begun to listen to the conversation. "He's never worked with Anderson before, and he is anything but a hardened veteran. In fact, he was slotted for this crew based on his pure potential. He had excellent Academy scores, and performed well on his first assignment; I even found a note in his file that mused on his eligibility to enter into the N program. Funny how pushing through the paperwork on that kind of opportunity completely depends on his commanding officer's opinion. Too bad the grunt hasn't impressed me; he seems to be making the wrong friends," Shepard finished, driving her point home and patting me on the arm. I saw the twitch of a smirk on her mouth as she watched Fern's face change from an indignant red to a fearful white before his head hung in embarrassment._

_I felt the atmosphere change again, as soldiers began trying to look ashamed and apologetic. Ashley Williams shuffled over and plopped down with a tray of food before giving me a small smile in apology. Her posture was still stiff, and I knew this didn't mean we were friends, but it was a step in the right direction, even if I thought she might only be doing it to gain the commander's approval. Another soldier that I had conversed with earlier finally found how to meet my eyes again, and he stood up to join the new turian fan club as well. I still felt awkward and childish that I had needed my commanding officer to earn me lunch table companions, but I couldn't stop my admiration of the complex and contradictory person that had decided I was worth stepping in for. _

XXX

I smiled as I remembered my initial impressions of Shepard. Her lower deck Ice Queen title had eventually become a joke in my mind; Shepard was cold and distant, but jarringly kind and would come to the aid of anyone in her crew. I started to see the façade as somewhat of cover for Shepard's social handicaps, but, Spirits, she would kill me if I ever told her that. She had begun thawing out so spectacularly at the end, even joking around with the rest of us in the mess instead of retreating to her cabin. I forgot how much I missed those evenings with all those Alliance soldiers. They really had grown on me.

I pushed off from my place on the wall and headed to my right. I didn't want to tour the ship without Shepard, but I couldn't resist making a short trip to the battery. Chakwas had casually mentioned its location, probably to get me and my fidgeting out of her medbay. It was a short trip, but I remained within eyesight of the Cerberus crew eating their lunch, and I could feel their eyes following me down the hall. I halted by the battery door, which was closed, but, luckily, remained unlocked. I hit the big green button quickly, sighing when the door slid shut behind me. I let myself lean back against the door in relief, at the familiar hum and at the escape of hostile glares. I wondered if this was what it was going to be like during the entire mission; surely some of the Cerberus members would warm up to me. I guess it didn't matter if they liked me, as long as they did their jobs right, but it would be nice to get rid of some of the hostility. _I wonder if they treat Shepard like this? That could definitely become a problem_, I thought to myself as I walked to the battery control panel. I might not have been part of C-Sec anymore, but respect for a commanding officer was something ingrained. It was necessary. As I fired up the battery controls, I made a mental note to watch the crew interact with Shepard.

I immediately dismissed the Cerberus diagnostics program, instead linking the systems to my omni-tool and running a program of my personal design. It had originated from the turian military, but I had taken a copy and fine-tuned it to my own specifications. I'd yet to find a program that could calibrate a system quite like my own. Some might find my lack of respect for the property of others disturbing; I, however, just attributed it to my long stint on Omega. Perhaps, I had never been good at following the rules anyway. I had willingly joined up with Shepard, after all. I watched the readings slide across the display intently, frowning as numbers lower than I expected continued to scroll past. It was at this moment, lost in my familiar work, that my brain suddenly pulled up in shock. Only a few days ago I had been certain I was going to die. I had given up all plans; all future paths had become dark and closed to me. Yet, for the second time, Shepard had stormed in and flipped the lights back on, and here I was moving along like it never even happened. I shook my head at it. Being with Shepard, even on a Cerberus ship, felt so right and so normal that I could almost forget that she had been dead and gone for two years, and that during that time I had allowed myself to descend into a darkness only halted by a betrayal and Shepard's intervention. The anger at Sidonis for causing the death of my team—and almost myself—ripped through me before I pushed it away, much as I had back in the base on Omega. It was a distraction and there was nothing I could do about that now; my place was here with Shepard. If I managed to track down Sidonis…well I would deal with that when the time came.

I moved to the side of the gun, expertly pulling off the side panel to reveal the inner circuits. At least the Cerberus engineers knew how to connect everything properly; nowadays everything was color coordinated anyway. There were still some tweaks I could make manually to improve the system before cleaning up the rest on the control panel, so I turned around and walked to the other side of the room to grab the tool chest that was fastened into the wall. Starting back, it was immediately obvious that the wires had been changed: into the exact configuration that would cause the gun to backfire and explode. I gaped at it for a moment before my eyes found a grinning Shepard leaned against the back wall of the battery, laughing at me. I hadn't even heard the woman come in, and that was saying something because the woman usually moved with the grace of a rhino.

"Ha, ha, very funny, Shepard," I said, making quick work of setting the circuits back to rights.

"I thought you'd like it," she responded while giving me a wink. "I can't believe the doctor gave you slack on your leash already. I expected you to be in chains for a least another two days. The Doc would've kept me for three; she's so overprotective."

"The doctor didn't give me slack; she practically sawed through the chains herself in an attempt to keep me from annoying her any farther. The doctor only gets away with keeping you for three days because _someone_ uses the time to sleep like a coma patient instead of trying to leave," I teased back.

Shepard shrugged sheepishly with a grin. "I like to get my beauty sleep when it's offered," she said. Her freckles stood out against the paleness of her face, offsetting the beginnings of dark circles under her eyes, and I recognized it as a sign that she hadn't been sleeping. Whether it was from stress or nightmares, I wasn't sure; it could be both. It had been much the same before our run to Ilos all those years ago; the wall between the captain's cabin and the mess hadn't been particularly thick, and I had enjoyed regular midnight snacks. I knew of the problems that plagued her at night, but I had never asked her what they were about. Our relationship had never been one for those tricky things called emotions. I left that to Ashley. Shepard began to look uncomfortable under my inspection and she quickly moved us on to a safe topic, "Anyway, how's the new gun look? She's a beauty right?"

"She'll get there. The engineers only maintained efficiency; they didn't get her up to her full capacity. But don't worry; I'll make her sing for us in no time," I answered, giving the side of the gun an affectionate pat. Talking guns with Shepard brought me straight back to old times, and once again I was stuck by the sense of security I felt being back with Shepard. I didn't know what it was about her that affected me so much, but something about her very presence let me breathe easier, gave me strength. No matter what mood she was in, or what had happened to her personally, I knew she would be there for me and for the crew. That was something I hadn't always been able to say about a commanding officer.

"I'm glad it was you I pulled off that station, Garrus. Even if I'm doing the right thing by those colonists, there could be one hell of a shit storm at the end of this. If there were ever a time to have good friend with me, it's right now," Shepard said shrugging and breaking eye contact to look at the floor. "So, yeah, I'm glad that it's you, is all I'm trying to say."

"You're sure about this, Shepard? There is always another way, if you want out. You can go back to the Alliance and yell at them to do something. It doesn't have to be Cerberus," I assured her.

"I told you before, Garrus, Cerberus is my only option to help these colonists, especially if the attacks are related to the Reapers," Shepard replied, her tone frosting over. "Why are you still pushing me on this? I thought you of all people would understand."

I gave a dark little chuckle at the irony of the situation and rolled out my stiff neck before responding, "That's just it, isn't it, Shepard? Of course I understand; I'm nothing if not practical. You, on the other hand, have always been the idealist. You told me that there was always another way to do things, that we always have a choice."

Shepard looked agitated, and I was hit with the full force of her glare before she turned her back and stalked away from me. I thought she would just leave the room, like she had done many times before when a conversation took a turn she didn't like, but instead she came close to the door and whirled back around. She paced along this trajectory for a minute, spinning round when she reached a wall and doubling back until she repeated the motion on the other side.

"I may not have always believed it, Shepard, but you did," I continued. "I don't care that we're working for Cerberus. Our other options are assholes too; at least we know beforehand that the sword will drop with Cerberus. However, I have a hard time believing that death would have taken away your belief in choice, not when you had always held to it so tightly. You chose Cerberus, even after what they did. I believe you when you say you don't feel obligated to them for bringing you back. So what is it?" Shepard stopped her pacing to face me.

"There was something that Lawson said to me, that the Alliance wouldn't want me back, not when 'my blood was paid for by Cerberus.' And it's just...getting to me a little bit. I think I believe her. The Alliance and the Council wouldn't listen to me before when it came to the Reapers. And now, they'll have even more reason to discount what I say," Shepard explained, her hands on her hips as she faced me. "Why go fight with them, when all these resources were laid out for me already? I don't have to trust them, but if it gets the job done..." She shrugged again, letting the end of the sentence taper off and hang there.

"So what I heard was: you're afraid that the Alliance won't want you back, or you believe you don't deserve to go back. But if you join up with Cerberus, they won't want you anyway, so you don't have to worry about it and the job still gets done. That about it?" I countered, my heart actually racing as the words left my mouth. Shepard may be glad to have me back, but I was pushing it, and I knew it.

Her lip twitched once as she glared at me, her moment of openness gone. "That's not what I said Garrus; you know that isn't true."

I was at a wall with her, so I decided to let this one go. I knew we would come back to it eventually. "Whatever you say, boss lady. I'm here for you, and if you think that Cerberus is the best way to do this, then I'll make sure we're ready for whatever the Collectors throw at us...and whatever trap waits with Cerberus at the end," I smiled, effectively breaking the tense moment, and I saw Shepard relax once more. "So how about you give me that tour you mentioned earlier?"

She gave a small glance around, and started towards the elevator while I followed. "Well, you've seen the battery and the mess, and that's most of this deck. So how about we start at my cabin on deck one, and work our way down?"

"The lady propositions me so early?" I dramatically placed my talons on my chest the way I had seen in a human film. "I don't know what kind of turian you think I am, but I certainly will not _join_ you in your cabin," I said loudly, grinning at the shocked Cerberus faces.

"Oh, shut up, Garrus," Shepard grinned, backhanding me on the chest.

The thump of her hand hitting me echoed around the suddenly quiet space, causing me to look back over my shoulder to the men sitting at the table with their food. Miranda Lawson had just emerged from her office, seemingly heading towards the constantly brewing coffee machine, and her presence had immediately slowed and then halted the conversation in the room. Unlike when Shepard and I had walked through where the group had given no indication that they noticed our presence, there were quiet murmurs of 'Operative Lawson' followed by quick chin nods in her direction. Miranda ignored them, something I'm sure they were used to, as they swiftly turned their attention back to their food. She gave not even a glance in their direction as she refilled her coffee cup and strode back to the office, her hips swaying with each step. All eyes followed her retreat, the eyes of the soldiers filled wariness. It was obvious that they didn't like her, but they respected her enough to be cautious. Miranda held their loyalty, at least for now, and my mind took this information and ran with it, grasping at what this meant for me and Shepard: the crew would follow Miranda, who was the biggest threat to Shepard's safety if Cerberus turned on us.

Thinking further, I realized that our current mission couldn't end in anything less than mutiny; Shepard may have chosen Cerberus for now, but she would never stay with them, despite her current misgivings of the Alliance, and she wouldn't think twice about taking the ship with her, too. But to do that, we were going to need at least some of the crew, and right now that didn't seem likely. Shepard was a force in her own right, and could probably gain the loyalty of most of the crew, but I had no idea how strong their attachment to Cerberus and the Illusive Man was. We needed to be smart about this, plan ahead. If it came to Cerberus or Shepard, would the crew choose be blacklisted by Cerberus just because they liked Shepard?

It would be a long shot unless..._unless the Cerberus XO left with Shepard, too. Then I think some of them would stay on the Normandy_, I thought as I remembered Miranda's concern for Shepard back on Omega.

I felt like I had just discovered something profound, even though it was something so simple. I guess I shouldn't have been congratulating myself just yet: getting those two to be friendly enough for Miranda to cross the Illusive Man just might be impossible. I found myself watching Shepard as her eyes tracked Miranda across the room in something close to open hostility. Shepard wouldn't take well to trusting such a high ranking Cerberus operative, and Miranda just didn't seem very open, from what I could tell. At least I had time to try and work my plan, secretly, of course. Who knows how Miranda would act if she knew what I was thinking. If Shepard knew, on the other hand, she would either be stubborn enough to not cooperate at all, or she would be way too obvious and Miranda would figure it out. No, I was on my own with this one. My very own matchmaking mission—well, sort of.

A derisive snort from Shepard brought me out of my thoughts, and I caught her rolling her eyes at Miranda's back. I gave her my best unamused look, but she just smiled and shook her head as she led us into the elevator and hit the button for Deck One. There was the humming of motors as the elevator lifted us up; in no time we were walking into the captain's cabin. It really was a stunning set up for a ship's captain, with two different levels to the room, a delectable looking couch, an office nook, and a massive aquarium that swallowed the entire left side of the room, though I wondered who the genius was who thought Shepard would actually keep an animal alive. I smirked at the glass case with a single ship model in it, and I saw boxes for several others on Shepard's desk; the woman always was an oddball. To the left of the bed was an armory station, and I nodded in approval at the separate accommodations outside of the communal armory. Shepard had never let anyone else maintain her gear; I was glad that hadn't changed.

"Wow, Cerberus really wanted to give you a reason to stick around, eh?" I asked as Shepard moved to lean against the side of her desk.

"Yeah, I bet they were thinking they could buy me off, just in case the four billion credit body didn't pan out," Shepard snorted.

"You've got to give them credit for trying, Shepard. They replicated your old ship, furnished you with a kick ass personal cabin, and keep throwing old friends at you. I wouldn't blame you for getting comfortable," I shrugged.

"Like anyone could be comfortable with Lawson breathing down their neck," Shepard scowled. "Besides, this isn't really my ship. It doesn't run like Alliance does. I'm the commanding officer, technically, but what does that mean to these people? They could easily ignore my orders, or they would take Lawson's over mine."

I paused a moment to think. It was true the Cerberus crew would probably answer to Lawson over Shepard, if it came to that. My earlier observations were evidence of that. However, I saw no reason why Shepard wouldn't have control over day to day operations, if only she were actually trying.

"So what? Start running the ship like you would your Alliance Normandy. They aren't responding to you because you aren't making them; you let yourself be pushed aside instead of acting like the commanding officer," I explained, moving forward into the cabin and stopping in front of the armor locker. I admired the gloss on Shepard's recently cleaned, simply black armor. It was nothing like the colorfully patterned suits she used to wear.

"You think it's that easy? I start pretending that this is any other ship I've served on?" Shepard said disdainfully.

"It can't hurt. Like it or not, this is _your_ ship now, Shepard. If you don't step up, they really will go to Lawson for all their orders," I reasoned. I saw her thinking through my words, and her back subtly straightened.

"You're right. Hell, maybe I can paint the ship Alliance blue just to piss off the Illusive Asshole. I'll claim it under 'personalization of the workspace'," Shepard laughed, though I had the feeling that humor had been in short supply for her over the past few days. "But that still leaves Lawson as a problem," Shepard continued. "You're probably right that the crew would listen to me for most things, but if the Illusive Prick makes an order I don't like, they're going to listen to Lawson's order over mine. She's annoyingly loyal to Cerberus, and a right pain in the ass because of it."

_I've seen the way she looks at you, Shepard_, I thought. _Those blue eyes track your every move; Miranda could be loyal to more than just Cerberus_.

I shrugged. "Give it time, Commander. Things can change," I said, allowing myself a one-sided conspiratorial smile, "and if they don't, you won't have to worry about conflicting orders with Miranda for a while yet. She seemed to follow you just fine back on Omega."

Shepard sighed. "Yeah I know. She's actually not a bad person, I think. But she's Cerberus…" her voice trailed off, and she frowned.

"Maybe the two don't have to mutually exclusive," I said carefully, trying to build on Shepard's small admission.

"Never thought I'd hear you defend Cerberus, Garrus," Shepard protested, backing away and crossing her arms across her chest.

I took another step towards her, closing the distance she had put between us. "Shepard, look, you're a good friend; hell, you might even be my only friend, or I would've walked away from this insanity a long time ago. But the reality is that I'm your friend, and because of that, I'm going to do right by you, even if it makes you angry. If nothing else, don't question my intentions; I'm always betting on you."

"Alright, alright, enough with the heart to heart, sheesh. We still need to see Engineering and the CIC," Shepard said waving me forward. I knew a brush off when it was given to me, but tried not to let myself be offended. I knew how Shepard was; her actions didn't usually match how she was actually feeling. I could feel the tension that rolled off of the human that walked next to me, the kind I recognized as meaning Shepard was now flipping through all the ways she could escape to be by herself, all while physically resisting the urge to flat out run away from the conversation. I gave her a little more space while we walked, but felt rather pleased that she hadn't tried to excuse herself yet. During past conversations, she had sometimes just walked away without giving any explanation at all; I was flattered at her obvious attempt to maintain my company.

We walked around Engineering in less than five minutes, and Shepard pointed out the cargo hold through the window but didn't offer to extend the tour that direction. I found I liked the lower deck; the hum reminded me of when I was on the original _Normandy_ and there were fewer crew members here. Plus the two that were, Donnelly and Daniels, were actually pretty entertaining; they even made Shepard smile.

Next, I found myself on deck two with the CIC. Shepard led us immediately forward to see Joker, and I saw her nod at one of the crew members as she walked by, the first time I had seen that courtesy extended by Shepard on the new ship. I wondered if she was taking my earlier conversation to heart, but she made no other attempts at friendliness when we passed other stations. I put the thought to the side as we joined Joker, and had a brief exchange of smiles and jokes about the old times. To be honest, I didn't know the lieutenant very well; we had always been a deck apart before, but it felt good to have another part of the old crew with us. We laughed about being on a Cerberus ship after all we'd been through, and it was Shepard who made the first move to break out of the conversation and lead me away.

It was when we were walking back to the elevator that I saw Shepard nod at the same man as before. I waited until we rounded the side of the galaxy map towards the elevator before stopping Shepard with an arm out in front of me.

"So, who is that?" I asked.

Shepard made an exasperated face. "There's multiple people on this deck, Garrus. You're going to have to be a little more specific."

"You know exactly who I mean: the only person besides Joker that you've acknowledged on this whole floor," I responded.

"I don't know what you're talking about. Why would I know anyone in Cerberus?" Shepard replied with a question instead of an answer.

"Oh, don't give me that crap, Shepard," I said, towering over her short frame, even as she managed to look intimidating anyway. "Let's not pretend like you haven't memorized every name and face on this ship, as well as a basic service record. I know you started that the first day on board; it's what I would've done. So, who is he?"

Shepard sighed and gave me a scowl. "His name is Redmond Wills, honorable discharge from the Alliance."

I resisted the urge to give her a light punch for her stubbornness. "And…?" I said while waving a talon forward in the air to get her to go on.

"And...I met him on one of the many stations that I lived on growing up. He was a First Lieutenant and a good man from what I could tell. He was given a discharge when his daughter got sick; her father is all she had. If he's here, I can only assume she died, though I don't know what brought him to Cerberus," Shepard said finally.

"So go talk to him," I suggested. "Think of it as your first step to marking your place as the commanding officer."

"Look, Garrus, I appreciate what you're trying to do, okay? I will go talk to him, but not today. I've already had too much; I want to head back to the easy part when I run in and shoot everything," Shepard said with a sad twist of her mouth.

"Alright, Shepard, then you go get ready to go out and shoot things," I replied, giving her a playful bump on her shoulder. "Let's show the galaxy that Commander fucking Shepard is back."

"Might not have been much of a comeback without you, Garrus," she said softly. The raw honesty in her eyes floored me.

"Then go give 'em hell for the both of us," I said back, gripping her forearm, before giving her a 'light' shove towards the elevator and smiling.

Shepard beat a quick exit to don her armor, and I went to chat with Joker some more at the helm. I didn't worry about getting ready myself; I was still woozy on painkillers and apparently the salarian doctor she was trying to recruit was camped in the middle of a plague zone, a plague that was very much transferrable to weakened turians. So I had gracefully bowed out of this one.

When Shepard reappeared on the command deck, I was pleased to see her armor once again carried the distinctive red N7 stripe down the side, and she had given the silver N7 an extra polish. I think she might even have been smiling behind her helmet.


	7. Friends and Monsters

**Hey there everyone! Hope you're excited for a new chapter, and I think I actually rolled this one out in a decent amount of time. Just a small heads up: I have a job this summer that will take me to the interior of Alaska and, sadly, away from the wonders of laptop computers and wifi. So this may be the only chapter until August, though I'm going to try to get one more in. **

**Thanks to everyone who has followed/favorited this story. The email notifications make my day! As always, thank you again to the best beta ever, Ablated Crayon. :]**

* * *

_**Chapter 7**_

_**Friends and Monsters**_

Miranda

_I'm lost. I can't believe I got myself lost in the middle of a mission_, I thought. It felt like I was walking in circles; the walls and doors of the hallways all looked the same. Naturally, this pisshole wouldn't bother with signs or directories. I hoped I was at least heading in a consistent direction. Eventually, these hallways would drop me somewhere familiar, right? _Ugh, I shouldn't have risen to the bait. If I had just kept my mouth shut, this wouldn't be a problem. _The commander had just been moving so infuriatingly slow.

XXX

"Shepard, is it necessary for you to stop and hack _every_ terminal we come across? Cerberus provides you with plenty of funding," I huffed. Shepard levelled a cold glare at me, and turned her attention back to the terminal she was working on.

"We can always use more upgrades, Lawson. The Cerberus money isn't unlimited," Shepard finally said.

"Maybe if you spent less of that money on aquatic animals to kill, it would seem a little less limited," I growled. I saw the corners of her mouth twitch up in a hidden smirk, and it made me even angrier. I wasn't even sure exactly what I was angry about, but Shepard had simply been aggravating today. She was strutting about with that stupid N7 stripe and being overly helpful to every civilian we came across. Not to mention wasting an application of medi-gel on that lost cause of a sick batarian. In fact, she was acting exactly as I had expected her to act upon awakening: just like her old self. Her heated anger and barely controlled emotions from the first few days were put back in place behind her cool calm, her demeanor doing a complete turn around in a matter of hours, or so it seemed.

Maybe her adjustment period had simply expired. However, I had a hard time believing that all that anger Shepard had been showing was simply banished by a reunion with an old friend. It was too easy. Or maybe I'd just never had that good of a friend. Whatever.

The terminal gave a beep as Shepard logged off, and she straightened to turn her bright green gaze back on me. Shepard's commander persona was firmly in place for this mission, and her face showed no emotion as she evaluated me. I hated how calming her presence was, and how safe it felt to give over to her control. Commander Shepard made me feel…protected. _Which is stupid because she hates you_, the rational part of my mind decided to pitch in.

"Am I moving too slow for you, Operative Lawson?" Shepard suggested in a low voice that made me shiver.

"It's not about me," I said through gritted teeth. "The mission would move more efficiently if we forewent these distractions."

"So, you're only worried about the mission, not trying to tell me how to run it?" Shepard clarified sharply. I nodded. "Good, then you won't mind scouting out ahead for us. Mr. Taylor, Zaeed, and I should be fine for now without you, and you can move ahead at your own pace."

"This place is overrun with mercs, Shepard, way too many for me to fight on my own," I protested.

"That's why you're a _scout_, Lawson. Make sure they don't see you. Then you can double back and find us," Shepard said waving me forward in a dismissal.

XXX

I had clenched my fists and stalked away from her, not relaxing until I had rounded a corner. I had continued forward so angry that I hadn't paid attention to my surroundings until I was thoroughly lost. That's how I came to be wandering the identical halls of the Omega slums. I knew I should radio Shepard and ask for her location; I could at least follow that on my omni-tool. However, my pride was still stinging at being sent away, and I was determined to find her on my own.

I knew I was getting close once I started seeing scattered vorcha and krogan bodies coupled with biotic scorching and shotgun damage, but there was still no sign of Shepard. I heard the sound of gunfire up ahead and started towards it, but stopped when I noticed the absence of biotic explosions, the sure fire way to find Shepard. Well I wasn't stupid enough to run into a fight by myself.

I noticed a door to my left that was locked: it was likely an apartment. An apartment could have a back door that might lead me around the gunfire I heard ahead, so I pressed my omni-tool against the door to start hacking the lock. It was running for a few seconds when I noticed the sparks around the door latch; the door wasn't fully closed and the lock seemed to be forced open. I shut down my omni-tool and instead slipped my fingers into the crack, leaning back with my weight until I managed to pull the door open enough for me to slip through.

It was a normal looking apartment, neat and orderly until I noticed the bullet holes. I walked further into the dimly lit space and was hit with a familiar smell, the copper tinge of blood invading my mouth. The source was obvious when I rounded the corner, causing me to gasp at the two bodies. I was no stranger to death. I had shot without flinching and tortured where necessary, but rarely had my target been a relatively innocent, normal person. The disturbing sight of these two rang hard within me. The woman sat slumped on the ground, part of her body propped against the bottom half of the kitchen counter. Bright blood and tissue puckered out of the slit on her throat, gruesome above multiple bullet wounds in her torso. I could see from their placement that none of the bullets had hit a critical mark: she would have been in a lot of pain before they got close enough to use a knife. I felt my face pulling down into a disgusted frown; it was clumsy, barbaric. My face twisted wryly as I considered the irony of my reaction: I had willingly tortured several people, making them scream in pain and beg me to stop. But this...if you were killing someone to get them out of the way at least have the decency to make a quick clean shot. Anything else was dishonorable.

_Bloody hell, I'm starting to sound like the Alliance poster girl._

The man lay face down not three feet from her, his back a shredded hole from a close contact shotgun. His arm was stretched above him, fingers searching desperately for the woman, but they had fallen short by mere centimeters.

The messy work was most likely from gangs that had moved through. They were ahead of me, and that probably meant Shepard was, too. I needed to move onward, but I was still floored by the sight of the man reaching for his beloved, even in death. Struck by a moment of fancy, I leaned down and tugged on the man, pulling him closer where I could put the woman's hand in his. There, that was better, I thought wiping my hands of the scent of death.

_Getting soft, Lawson?_ A voice in my head mocked me and I kicked myself for being stupid and sentimental over dead people I didn't even know. Quickly pacing to the other side of the apartment, I shoved through the back door of the apartment and stuck my head out. The hallway was empty, so I set out to find Shepard once again.

Finally, I saw a sign on the wall that pointed in the direction of the environmental systems, Shepard's destination to release the plague cure. I moved forward a little happier and hit the button on the door at the end of the hallway.

I was greeted with multiple sounds of _thump, plink _as rocket launchers locked onto me. I saw three rockets blazing in my direction, but before I could react I felt my body being bowled over to the side. My face was buried in a hot neck and my jaw was bruised by the top of Shepard's breastplate as an armored arm locked around my waist and pulled us both back into cover. I was overwhelmed by the smell of sweat, smoke, and, surprisingly, vanilla almond that rolled off of her skin. I could feel Shepard's rapid pulse against my cheek and my body responded by matching my heartrate to hers, and a sinking warmth crept into my stomach. I hoped she couldn't see the new flush on my cheeks as I pushed away to sit against the wall on my own.

"Pay attention, Lawson. I won't always be close enough to save your ass, and I doubt the Illusive Prick would be happy if I broke one of his toys," Shepard growled. I bristled with indignation at her words, but softened slightly when I saw her eyes examining me for injury; her emerald gaze wasn't nearly as hard as her words. "Where the hell have you been anyway? I asked you to scout ahead, not go get a manicure," Shepard continued roughly.

"I may have taken a few wrong turns," I admitted. Shepard raised a brow at me in a way that clearly meant, 'we'll talk about this later.'

"Only one fan left to turn on. It's on our left and down the hallway. Taylor and Zaeed are up a ways from our position, blocking the mercs from coming down the hallway. Move up behind me, and we'll wipe them out. The heavys with the rocket launchers can't see us down there," Shepard explained. I pulled out my gun, ready to fight, and Shepard nodded before becoming a blaze of blue charging away from me.

I ran up behind, easily warping the few vorcha Shepard's charge hadn't thrown clear. The commander was now grappling with a large Blood Pack krogan. She looked tiny next to his bulk, but still managed to match him hit for hit. I wondered why she didn't move out of his swinging range, until I realized she was making sure the krogan never gained enough distance to charge her. Unfortunately, that also meant the distance was too small for Shepard to biotically charge him down as well. Shepard was wrapping her fists in biotics for every hit, however, and was forcing the krogan to back away from her. She took a risk and rolled backwards, flipping back up onto the balls of her feet as biotics wreathed around her form once again. She shot forward, and I timed a warp to match her impact, watching in admiration as the biotics detonated and the krogan buckled and fell at Shepard's feet. Even with her L5 implants, Shepard didn't have enough force to knock a krogan very far, so she whipped the shotgun off her back and pushed it against the krogan's head before blasting him into stillness.

"Nice of you to show up, Miranda," Jacob called over to me.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up Jacob. I'm here now, aren't I?" I yelled back. Jacob was shaking his head.

"She showed up just in time for us to do all the heavy lifting, Jacob! It's probably for the best anyway. We wouldn't want that pretty face marked by any real fighting," Shepard quipped. I shot a glare at her, but she just smiled at me, all perfect white teeth in a beautifully flushed face. "C'mon, we better give the good news to Mordin. Then we can finally get off this rock," Shepard said.

XXX

Two hours later I sat at my desk, absently stirring the cold coffee I'd left on my desk from that morning. Mordin was settled in his lab, and I had made sure that Shepard went to Dr. Chakwas for her post-mission exam. The woman squirmed like a child every time she had to get an examination, but seemed pleased at the results of the new medical equipment Chakwas had ordered. Her scars were almost gone, and last I heard before I left the room was her conspiring with the doctor to repurpose the equipment to fix Garrus' scars as well. She was an annoyingly good friend.

Jacob had requested an urgent meeting with me to debrief about the latest mission, and I expected that he would arrive at any moment. I wasn't very worried about it; Jacob always had his panties in a bunch about something or other. My omni dinged as Chakwas dutifully forwarded the updated diagnostics on Shepard's cybernetic implants, and I downloaded it onto a datapad so I could scroll through the results easily. Everything looked good. Shepard was in great health. The mission was running without a hitch. Everything was just...perfect.

I threw the datapad at the wall, taking satisfaction in the crunch it made when it hit.

This was one the the best Cerberus missions I had been a part of, and I had never felt so frustrated and useless.

Being sent away during the mission hadn't stung earlier. I knew Shepard was just being grumpy and stubborn. It was when I got back and realized the mission would have done just fine without me that my pride smarted a bit. On this ship I was second in command; they didn't need me when they had Shepard. I was irritated with myself for giving into such a petty emotion as jealousy.

_Plus my office is bloody hot_, I thought, irritated. Being next to the ovens in the mess was not always an advantage, and they must have just fired them up to start dinner. I abandoned dignity and sprawled out on the cool metal floor, sighing in relief as I pressed different parts of my face against the metal to cool.

I flipped over and scooched to another section of floor to cool my back, tossing my hair back to splay out above me. I looked at my hair, silky and smooth with not a single split end. My gaze traced down my body with its smooth curves and gracefully defined muscles. I looked young for thirty five, a result of my genetic tailoring. All of my father's work to create his dynasty, all that work to try and create a perfect woman, and the closest I've seen a woman come to perfection was born four years after me-perfect in all the ways that matter anyway.

I laughed, the sound echoing around my room. I felt silly just lying on the floor to have a pity party. And why? Because Shepard could walk into my job and do it ten times better? I already knew that; if I could take down the Collectors on my own I would have done it and not bothered with rebuilding Shepard. I looked back over to my desk and the virtual pile of work that needed to be done and I felt a little appeased. Shepard was horrible at mission reports. At least I had something on her.

_Damn it, stop being petty and vain. You know your worth, Miranda Lawson, and this changes nothing. You can't always be the best_, I thought angrily at myself. Only, I still wanted to be the best.

I sighed, trying to resign myself to getting up and going back to my desk when the doors to my office slid open. I angled my head backwards and was rewarded with an upside down Shepard staring curiously down at me.

"Your timing is uncanny," I drawled, looking back forwards to spare my neck. There was no point to getting off the floor now. I already looked ridiculous so might as well stay where it's cool.

Shepard walked around my body to stand in my line of sight, and I was delighted by the draft of cold air that followed in after her. The commander must have come from the showers, her red hair damp and leaving wet splotches on her clothes where they touched. She arched an eyebrow and fell back into her usual stance with her arms crossed.

"You doin' alright there, Lawson?" Shepard asked. She shuffled her feet, probably uncomfortable with the situation. Her discomfort actually made me feel better, in a twisted kind of way. I needed reminders of her humanity. "Yeah, so, I avoid messy emotional breakdowns when I can, but I'll go get Kelly for you."

I glared up at her, and the stupid smile she was now wearing. "As if I would talk about anything of importance with that woman, Miss I-have-a-psychological-profile-for-everyone. I hardly see how she's fit to judge anyone's emotional capabilities; she looks like she barely escaped high school," I huffed. "There is nothing the matter with me, Shepard. This room is just overly warm and the floor feels nice. You're welcome to join if that will make you spit out whatever you came here to say."

Shepard's eyes narrowed at me but she also tried to hide a smile Why, I had no idea. Nothing I had said had been humorous.

"You can keep your floor, Lawson," Shepard said, plopping into a chair near me. "I was thinking of starting regular training sessions here in the next week or so. I noticed that training simulator on the lower deck, and thought it'd be a good idea to train the team together before throwing them into real combat."

She looked at me expectantly and I cocked an eyebrow. "Let's not pretend that you don't understand how the command chain works here, Shepard. You hardly have to ask my approval for training with your own ground team," I scoffed, annoyed.

Shepard gave that stupid smile again, and it irritated me. Who knew I would miss the hostile Shepard from a week ago?

"Well I was thinking I'd open the invitation to the whole crew and rotate the times so that everyone would have a chance to attend, if they wanted. But I'm not familiar with how the shifts here rotate," she explained, like it was obvious.

Well one thing was obvious. "You just want me to do the scheduling for you, " I stated.

"Er, yeah. Isn't that what XO's are for?" Shepard asked.

"Did you ever schedule anything when you were an XO?" I remarked, rewarded when her face looked sheepish.

"Not really," she admitted.

"Probably because you'd be horrible at it. Just like you're horrible at reading through any of the mission reports I sent you to approve. No doubt they're collecting dust on your desk," I muttered and Shepard frowned at me.

"I would be happy to do that for you, Commander," I amended, whipping out my best sarcastic voice. Shepard just looked smug and stood to leave again. "Just one thing," I said to stop her, thinking of her request. None of my reports indicated Shepard would have an interest in a relationship with her crew members; she never had before. "Why the whole crew?"

"Ah, you know, let everyone blow off some steam together. Besides, I'm planning to include sparring rounds, and it'll be fun to see if any of these Cerberus lackeys want to take me on. Speaking of which," Shepard smirked, "I expect you'll be at all the training sessions with the rest of the ground team. No wandering off like you did this morning."

I scowled. Did she just call me a lackey? _I take that challenge._

"I did not wander off! You sent me as a scout!" I called at her retreating back. Shepard just looked over her shoulder and threw a sarcastic little finger wave my direction.

I wondered at her reputation for always being cold. Was that only from people who were with her on a mission? Of course she would be cold when she's focused. She seemed much more relaxed here on the ship.

Infuriating woman.

XXX

Liara

My hands were shaking so hard that I wasn't sure how I hadn't dropped the datapad that I held. Even when I gingerly turned the datapad display off and placed the object in my bag, the last picture it showed me still burned against my retinas. A contact I had sent to Omega had provided yet another update on Shepard, and this was nothing like seeing the still shot of her on the shuttle. There she had been beautiful and serene, glittering green eyes gazing unknowingly at Miranda's subtle picture taking. Blazing red hair had framed her face, touching lightly against the strong cheekbones, the same cheekbones I had spent hours languidly tracing as we lay in bed together. I had pulled that picture of Shepard up on my omni-tool so many times I had lost count-I had every pixel of it memorized.

This new report showed something entirely different. It was still of Shepard, fully geared once again in her N7 armor and watching dispassionately as several batarians threatened a young man. Shepard was splattered with blood and other gore normal for her profession, and a cut on the cheekbones I so cherished dripped crimson blood that ran down until it disappeared into the top of her breastplate. The still picture looked like a hostage situation, something that Shepard had almost always been able to talk her way out of successfully; I assumed this would be much the same before I pressed the play button for the video attachment. The stream had no audio, stripped straight from outdated security feed, but the tone of the voiceless yelling was clear even without it. Guns were raised and Shepard's mouth moved, seemingly to convince them to give her the...medical officer? The young man was wearing a typic medic's suit, looking so lowly and average that I couldn't see why the batarians were bothering with him at all.

The two groups seemed to reach an agreement, the batarian voicing a question followed by Shepard nodding, her sharp eyes still trained on the batarian's gun. The young medic was pushed forward, and I expected Shepard to take him and retreat peacefully out of the room.

Only that didn't happen.

When the medic was within Shepard's reach, a batarian opened his mouth to speak again, only for it to hang slack in death as a bullet pierced his skull and he dropped to the floor. The rest of the batarian group met the same fate, the nozzle of Shepard's pistol sliding from target to target so quickly that they never fired a shot in return. The dark skinned soldier behind Shepard looked at her in an expression crossed between horror and disgust; I'm sure my initial reaction was much the same. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it under my ribs as I paused the video, unable to tear my tortured eyes away from Shepard's face.

Her eyes were blank, and the corner of her mouth had turned up in a slight smirk.

Goddess, she had been smiling. How could she... Who is that... Monster, my thoughts tumbled over themselves, unable to form complete strings until the one word jumped out at me and took hold, repeating over and over in my mind: monster.

Was this just something I had never noticed when working with her two years ago? I remember times when Shepard had done far worse, but I had always been next to her, and I understood the justification. Had I been so blind in the past that I hadn't known this part of her?

Am I honestly any better? I had done so many things the past few years, actions that haunted my unconscious hours until I felt like I hadn't had a decent night's sleep in years. It felt like the last time I had slept peacefully had been in Shepard's arms, the arms of a woman I had just called a monster. What did that even say about me?

The next message had somehow been worse, hitting at my heart on a different side. The description given by the contact had been brief, simply: Normandy Commander Shepard and XO Miranda Lawson, Cerberus. Location: Omega slums. I expected little more; my contacts had been told to give information about Shepard priority and all knowledge about her mission and her goal on Omega was old news. All I had received the past few days had been pictures and security video feeds of interest. My interest this did hold.

Shepard had her armored arm around Miranda, pulling her off to the side as a rocket wizzed by. Shepard's face was stoic with concentration as she looked in the direction of her motion, but Miranda's was nestled up beneath Shepard's chin. Her eyes were closed and her face was turned into Shepard's neck, red lips maybe a breath away from the commander's skin. I told myself it could be entirely innocent, but the rage that jumped through me clamored a different story. Miranda looked, for all intents and purposes, like a woman who was exactly where she longed to be. Jealousy poured through me, making me forget my earlier reservations and all the reasons I had sent no other message to Shepard after the first one that had never received a response. For a moment, I didn't care that she could be a monster worse than I.

_Shepard is mine, my monster_.

I started to run on autopilot as I ran my hands over my outfit, trying to smooth away any lines that had been caused by the taxi ride. All I had to do was make it through this lunch and I could run off to gather my thoughts in the solitude I so craved. I couldn't for the life of me understand why I was so nervous; I was just here to meet an old friend. However, though I had planned for my business on the Citadel to coincide with Ashley's, I hadn't expected an invitation from her only hours after my landing. The Alliance must be keeping tabs on me.

I checked the message again, paranoid of going to the wrong location and being late, but the words hadn't changed, and our lunch date would start in a few minutes. I rounded the corner and my eyes caught the little café nestled into the side of the terrace. There was a balcony further down that looked over the Citadel gardens and water reservoir, and I appreciated the beauty, though I had seen it many times before. I wondered how Ashley had known my favorite place to eat on the Citadel; they had the best little sandwiches.

Chief Williams was already seated at a table. It was one of the few times I'd ever seen her out of armor and uniform, and I almost didn't recognize her. Her dark hair hung loose around her shoulders, and she had tucked part of it behind her ear. It had a softening effect on her face that was flattering compared to her usual severe bun. Her eyes lit up when she saw me, and she hurried to stand and pull out my chair for me to sit down. I smiled softly, my heart turning painfully as I remembered all the times Shepard had performed the same action. I quickly waved the waiter over and requested my usual, then waited for her to bustle away before turning towards Ashley.

"Ashley, I have to say I was surprised to receive your invitation so quickly. I hadn't realized you would know of my presence here on the Citadel," I said coolly. Ashley's lips twitched up in a smile at my distant demeanor.

"Hm, looks like my translator is glitching. What I heard was, 'why is the Alliance watching me, and I wanted to be the one to send the invitation'," Ashley smirked, and I softened. Her slip into an easy conversation comforted me, and it almost felt like we could be sitting around the mess on the Normandy again.

"I suppose it does," I said returning her smile. "While I would love to catch up, I have a feeling that our meeting is meant for more business than pleasure."

Ashley shifted in her seat uncomfortably and dropped her eyes to the table, her drink suddenly interesting. There was a moment of silence before Ashley looked up again.

"It's about Shepard," Ashley started. I stiffened at her words. "The Alliance received a tip that she's actually alive, but working with Cerberus." I said nothing, and Ashley sat back in surprise, crossing her arms across her chest. "You knew about this already, Liara?" Ashley asked, dumbfounded.

"I'm an information broker now, Ashley. It makes sense that this would be a valuable piece of information for me to have," I defended. I didn't want her to know how extensive my knowledge of Shepard's reappearance went. Ashley could easily hate me for giving Shepard's body to an organization that both the soldiers despised.

"Why aren't you…I mean…you guys were…shit, Shepard was in love with you. I would've thought you'd go running into her arms if you knew she was alive," Ashley said. Her brows were drawn down in confusion, wrinkling the skin across the bridge of her nose.

"Shepard was dead, Ashley," I said brusquely. Her eyebrows shot up, and Ashley's face paled slightly at my words. "I haven't even seen her yet. I suppose I'm afraid that it isn't really Shepard they've brought back, as much as it looks like her." I pulled up my picture of Shepard on my omni-tool, and flipped the display for Ashley to see.

"Cerberus assholes couldn't even be bothered to get the hair color right," Ashley seethed. The look in her eyes was enough to tell me the picture upset her, so I quickly minimized it off my omni-tool.

"What if there are more changes like that, Ash? I've mourned Shepard for two years, and the thought that she's alive makes me want to cry with happiness. But I'm not sure I could handle the pain of having her walk up to me and not actually be my Shepard," I admitted. It was cowardly of me. I was afraid of the pain, so I was attempting to ignore my problem.

"How could she be the same? Our Shepard would never have worked for Cerberus," Ashley said definitively. I shook my head.

"I don't believe that's necessarily true. My information says Shepard is working to stop the attacks on human colonies. You and I both know she would put aside her grudge for Cerberus in light of something that important," I reasoned.

"That's just it, Liara. Alliance intel believes Cerberus is actually behind the colony attacks, and it looks bad that Shepard is working with them, no matter her reasons," Ashley replied.

"You have to hear how crazy that sounds, Ash. What would Cerberus stand to gain by abducting tens of thousands of humans? They've never shown an interest in attacking their own kind like this before," I said.

"I get it, Liara, but that doesn't change what the Alliance brass thinks. I'm being shipped out to Horizon because they got a tip that it's next to get hit, but Anderson has asked me to try and learn more about Shepard's reappearance. No one imagined she had actually died…still, I called you here because I thought out of everyone, you had to be the one who would know the most about this," Ashley explained. I hesitated, causing Ashley to lean forward against the table expectantly.

"You know, if this is official business, the Alliance could at least pay me for what I know. I'm an information broker, not a charity," I chastised.

Ashley leaned back again and gave a smirk. "Crafty, T'Soni, but you don't have to beat around the bush to get your answers. This isn't official; I'm asking you as a personal favor," she assured. I sighed.

"Shepard is now part of a Cerberus cell named Lazarus," I started. I had done research on the origins of the name; it came from a story in a human religious text about a man that was raised from the dead. Ashley's eyes darkened with understanding. "Shepard seems to be recruiting members for her team to attack the Collectors. My latest information indicated that Shepard has been rejoined by Garrus, who was hiding out on Omega. Cerberus provided her with a new ship, and the outfitted it with a full crew, all Cerberus of course. However, it seems that the only combat members Cerberus has provided are a soldier named Jacob Taylor and the XO Miranda Lawson."

"Shepard agreed to having a Cerberus XO?" Ashley asked in disbelief. I nodded.

"I'm not sure she was exactly given a choice. It seems likely that Cerberus can insist on many concessions in return for providing Shepard with the funding she needs. Miss Lawson was also the head of the Lazarus Project, the program that was dedicated to rebuilding Shepard," I said, pulling up a picture of Miranda for Ashley's reference. "She seems to be a very talented woman. I would imagine she's a great asset to the team."

Ashley was quiet for a moment, staring at the picture. Her expression was odd, and I couldn't really place what it meant.

"Wow," Ashley said, snapping out of her thoughts to give a devious grin. "I'm guessing the commander appreciates the uniform." Ashley laughed, but stopped abruptly when she saw my face. My mind flashed to the picture I had received this morning, and the anger welled up in me again.

"I am aware of Miss Lawson's many…attributes," I managed to say calmly. "Meanwhile, this is all the information I possess on Shepard's activities at this time."

"Do you really believe it, Liara? Why should I believe that Cerberus isn't behind this, and that they didn't create some monster imitation of Shepard?" Ashley asked softly.

"I don't have evidence you want, Ash, but it just doesn't make sense for Cerberus to take thousands of colonists. As for Shepard, I suppose we'll both have to wait until we see her," I replied.

"Right," Ashley said, standing from the table. "Well, I hate to dine and dash, but I've got to ready my gear for the trip to Horizon. It was great to see you, Liara, and I appreciate your help."

Ashley almost darted away from the table, but I reached out and snagged her arm.

"One more thing, Ashley. That tip, you mentioned, do you know where it came from?" I asked. Ashley crossed her arms and leaned back, almost an exact imitation of Shepard's trademark pose. _She really does rub off on everyone_, I thought.

"Not that they told me. I think it might have been anonymous. Why?" Ashley replied.

"Something doesn't seem right. The fact that Shepard is working with Cerberus has been heavily guarded until now. I only acquired the information through a high level contact I possessed within Cerberus. I would be careful on Horizon," I mused.

"So you _do_ think Cerberus could be behind the attacks?" Ashley asserted.

"That's not what I said. It just seems Cerberus may want you on Horizon for some reason," I explained. "I don't find that notion entirely comforting, do you?"

"Well, I guess I'll watch my back then," the young woman said as she smiled at me. She surprised me by coming around the table to give me a hug in farewell, before leaving me to finish my half eaten sandwich.

XXX

Ashley

I tried to keep my pace even and slow, careful not to alert Liara to anything wrong. I hoped she hadn't heard the lie in my voice: I had several weeks before shipping out to Horizon. I just couldn't handle the conversation any longer, talking about Shepard. That woman was everything I ever wanted to be as an Alliance marine. She was strong, courageous, and a leader I would've followed to the very last circle of hell, but then she had been taken from me. Never had I felt the loss of another marine so acutely. I carried on, burying myself in my duties, because it was the only thing I knew how to do. A Williams never quits, and I had the family name to not disgrace further. Everything had felt so hollow away from the _Normandy_, away from Shepard; my loyalties had shifted from serving only the Alliance cause, to simply serving Shepard, and the heart couldn't easily replace that kind of absence.

Now this throbbing in my chest was even worse. Shepard had been literally raised from the dead, a seemingly impossible feat, and the woman I so admired worked for an enemy we had spent countless hours fighting and hating together. I felt disgust towards this new Shepard. Had it been under any other circumstances, I would throw away everything to work with Shepard again. But my joy at hearing she was alive was tainted with the betrayal of her working for Cerberus. I wasn't sure I could forgive it, even if her motivations were pure. We were Alliance soldiers, supposedly until the end. How could she walk away from that? Why wouldn't she go back to the Alliance? Hell, she hadn't even tried to contact me.

I shoved these thoughts away as I tried to plan my next moves. Like I told Liara, my investigation into Shepard was completely unofficial, personally requested by Anderson while I had the downtime before Horizon. I hadn't believed him when he first told me. I had thought of Shepard's return as lies spread by Cerberus, but I couldn't argue with the truth in Liara's words and her pictures. With confirmation of Shepard's existence, my mission became simple: my job was to figure out if it was really Shepard, and determine whether her mission was genuine. Cerberus could have built a copy that was nothing like Shepard, and my heart almost wished it were true, that the Shepard I knew wasn't involved in this kind of betrayal.

The thing was, for all Liara's talk about being unsure about Shepard, her eyes hadn't been speaking the same language. She had known something else. She must have information that told her it was really Shepard, but she didn't want to share it, or wasn't ready to admit it to herself just yet. I cringed as I thought about the touch of fear that those blue eyes had held as well. But whether it was fear that Shepard wasn't truly back, or fear that she was, I wasn't sure.

Anderson had sent Shepard an invitation to meet him on the Citadel, and he had reason to believe she would come. While Anderson would know better than me whether the true Shepard met with him, I was led to believe he wanted evidence, or at the very least a coinciding opinion, about Shepard to present to the Alliance brass. The man was still trying to protect her; I wasn't sure she still deserved it, but I could wait to find out.

* * *

**Ending Author's Note:**

So what did you guys think? I'm having a great time writing Miranda, and for now it seems that she's going to be the major point of view for this story. Don't worry; you'll still have Garrus occasionally and a lot of Liara later on. There's also a sprinkle of Ashley, just because she's awesome.

Ashley's side plot line is where I'll start to go off canon (because, obviously, she didn't have much of a role in the game), but it is on the side and won't make this an AU. How does everyone feel about me bringing her in?

I'd love to hear everyone's opinions, so drop me a review and let me know what you think! We all know reviews provide motivation...maybe enough motivation to get that extra chapter in before I leave?


	8. Team Building

**My deepest apologies for how long this took. I have many excuses that I doubt anyone is actually interested in, however, this chapter is at least very long. Hope you guys like it!**

* * *

_**Ch. 8 **_

_**Team Building**_

Miranda

I found myself awake even before the alarm went off, a deserved break for the clock that was biotically shot across the room every time it angered me in the morning. Naturally, I was already on my second one, and even it had a crack in the display from yesterday's encounter. I mused that I might have to start charging for the dumb machines out of my pay if I went through too many, not that Cerberus couldn't afford to support my daily clock abuse. The only number still legible around the crack told me it was some time after seven in the morning; our first training session in the cargo hold with Shepard wasn't until nine, so I snuggled down into my covers once more to relish the moment of peace. We were en route to the Citadel, meaning a few days of minimal responsibilities, and I felt the contentment of a weekend morning. I imagined Saturday morning sunshine streaming around the window curtains to wake me amid the chirps of various birds. Scratch the birds, but keep the sunshine, and it would be perfect.

I groaned into my pillow as the door to my cabin rushed open and a fully armored Shepard trod in, bringing with her the harsh sounds of reality. She glanced around the room before locating me in my bed and quickly moved to tower over me. I quickly found myself thinking I needed to remove her authorization to my door as her presence intruded into my space.

"Lawson, why in the world are you still in bed?" she asked, bewildered and impatient, her fingers tapping against the armor on her thigh.

"We don't have a mission for the next three days Shepard, and your appointment to shoot at me isn't until nine. Heaven forbid I sleep in a little," I grumbled, angrily trying to block out the lights that came on with her entrance with my blanket.

"I wouldn't call it shooting at you. In theory, I should be training to shoot _with _you," Shepard replied with a smirk that I couldn't see but knew was there. Her light tone irritated me even further. "Besides, I'm here for a reason. I finished reading over the mission reports you sent me. I made a few changes that you can look over, but otherwise I'm fine with you sending them off."

She waggled the datapad she held in her hand before tossing it on the bed next to me, but continued to stand next to the bed expectantly even when I tried to turn away and go back to my peaceful moment. I had to suppress the rising agitation in my chest that wanted me to order her out, but I wasn't the superior here. I counted in my head, calming down and reminding myself that Shepard was the woman that I had worked two years to bring back. Though, at the moment, I couldn't remember why. I heard her shuffle her feet in agitation before speaking up again, "Anyway, once you're up, I thought we could start a scheduled group breakfast. Build a sense of comradery and all that, especially once we start picking up more people."

I narrowed my eyes at her, peeking out from under the blanket I had pulled up to my face as I still trying to shake off the fog of waking. "To build camaraderie, one must first actually like the other people, Shepard," I said and tried to press back into the pillows.

"Some people might call that rude, Lawson," Shepard chuckled lightly, mistakenly thinking I had meant my comment for her instead of myself. "Besides, my previous crew was all Alliance, and they were already committed to each other. By my eye, this crew needs more work," Shepard rolled off. "So…up and at 'em, Lawson! I need the XO present for all the lovely team building nonsense."

God, Shepard actually seemed excited at the future misery promised by small talk and awkward silences. Perhaps she was just excited because she was going to make me do most of the work. I looked up at the half smirk on her face and decided, yes, that was probably the case. She was about to be sadly disappointed if she expected the crew members to lighten up because of my presence in the mess; actually, I would probably make it more awkward. Most of my subordinates were afraid of me. Granted, I did nothing to encourage anything else. They were underlings, not _friends_.

I rolled my head to the side to see Shepard was still standing next to the bed, and obviously not going to leave until I showed her I was getting out of the bed. Her fingers were no longer tapping at least, but she was coldly glaring at me, tense with her arms crossed. I hadn't been treated like this since I was a child and my nanny was getting me up for my daily tutoring session. At least the nannies had usually been gentle, unlike the bundle of muscle and armor chattering loudly while staring a hole in my head. Shouldn't an Alliance commander have learned some...propriety along the way? I doubted she treated her soldiers like this. I sighed, resigning myself to my fate, before throwing back the covers and wincing as the cold air hit me. I felt a tingle of pleasure when a slight flush crossed Shepard's face and she quickly turned around.

"Nice pajamas, Lawson," She mumbled. Calling them pajamas was being generous: I slept only in a bra and underwear.

"I'll, uh, leave you to get dressed," Shepard stuttered as I slid out of bed, wincing again when my bare feet touched metal. I grabbed my robe from the back of a chair, raising an eyebrow at Shepard who was still glued in place, eyes averted. Once I was covered, Shepard managed to snap back into herself. "Breakfast will be served promptly at 0800. I'll see you there." She turned crisply on her heel before walking out.

I resisted the urge to crawl back under the covers for another five minutes, but I was already out of the bed so I trudged over to the shower and turned it on. A quick twist of the still shiny knobs had the water on full force and hot, the sting of the shower pulling me gently to full awareness. I ran through my agenda for the day in my head, allowing a flicker of displeasure for the forced socialization I was soon to endure before quickly filing it away to assume my professional demeanor. The events of the previous night managed to slink into my thoughts as well, and the dread in my stomach that I had battled for hours the night before came slowly trickling back.

It had turned out that Jacob's interest in talking to me last night hadn't been simply to complain about some primadonna drama, like I had assumed. Instead he had brought forward real concerns about Shepard during the mission on Omega. That apartment that I had come to, the one with the couple that had so shaken me, had been in the path of the main ground team as well. Jacob told me how they had arrived at the apartment at much the same time as the mercenary thugs, but Shepard ordered them to continue on and bypass the apartment, using the civilians' deaths as a distraction to move in front of that group of guns.

"Miranda, she didn't even hesitate for a moment. It was like she didn't even care about them. I don't understand what happened," Jacob had choked out while I tried to look impassive behind my desk. "One moment she was fine, acting like the caring soldier I had seen in all the vids, but, after she sent you away, she started getting quieter, broody. She just looked angry, and I couldn't tell why."

I had leaned forward, concerned. "After I left? Was she angry with me? She's the one who sent me off!" I replied, outraged.

"No," Jacob said shaking his head. "I don't think that was it. I don't know. Suddenly, she was just...mad."

"Look, it's probably nothing. Taking advantage of an available distraction is a sound tactic. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about," I said, trying to do damage control, folding my hands in my lap so I didn't betray any emotion. Of course there was plenty to worry about, but a personality change like this was my responsibility. I wanted Jacob out of it.

"You weren't there!" Jacob gritted out suddenly, bringing a hand down hard on my desk. "There is something wrong, Miri."

I was still cringing at his casual use of my nickname; we hadn't been intimate enough for me to allow it for a good while now, and it's use had irritated me so much that I had kicked Jacob out of my office shortly after. But I understood by his usage of it how much he was begging me to take this seriously.

_Of course I'm going to take this seriously_, I scoffed in my head, washing shampoo out of my hair and wiping the soap away from my eyes. _Everything to do with Shepard is serious. _No doubt, the mission would have still succeeded had Shepard stormed that apartment, but there was no guarantee that the civilians would have survived even then. Would I have cared about her choice had I not been the one to see the results of her actions? Probably not. Even now, having seen the bodies, I had brushed them easily out of my mind. The dead civilians were just two lives, and the mission had been given a better chance of success by letting them die. In fact, it was easily something I would have done. I just never expected Shepard to be so...pragmatic.

Once again, I found myself battling to decide whether no one had truly known Shepard, or if I had somehow screwed up her brain. Or, maybe this was just who Shepard was without the guidelines of the Alliance, without Anderson and Hackett looking over her shoulder. Was there even a way for me to find out the truth? I knew how to read people as part of my job. It was essential to be able to predict the actions of others, or to know their emotions based on their body language. But knowing a person, actually knowing everything about them and who they are...I'm not sure I could even tell that about myself, nevermind someone else. It doesn't matter how many times I assured the Illusive Man that it was possible, how many times I told him I could do it. Personality was just so fluid, affected by so many variables, it made my head hurt to think about all the things that could have caused a change.

I wished I could have more time under the stream of water to continue to straighten out my thoughts, but my allotted time was already up. Conserving water was crucial if we wanted to continue to have the luxury of a shower before restocking at the Citadel. If the reservoir dropped below a certain point, the Normandy went on water restrictions where it was reserved for consumption, hand washing, and teeth brushing only. Even that could go away if it got too low, and tightly rationed cups of water would be handed out daily to each member. Of course, I was much too organized to ever let our stores get to that point, but that didn't mean I was allowed extra luxury over the rest of the crew.

As I wrapped a towel around myself and stepped out of the shower stall, I tried to wrap my head around how Shepard could go from simmering, angry murder to the lighthearted woman who had woken me this morning. I had seen snippets of her temper shine through, like on the shuttle when we'd first met, but she seemed to have it under control. I forced myself to dismiss my concerns from my mind to be addressed later. I had things to achieve today. I dried out my hair, pulled on my uniform, and made a beeline for the coffee in the mess, hoping the hot liquid could help me cut through my irritation that a possible serious personality change had slipped past, obscured by my hopes for the Lazarus Project.

I ignored the silence that fell over the other Cerberus crew members as they noticed my entrance, and poured coffee almost to the point that it spilled over, not bothering with cream or sugar today. This was going to be a hell of a day, and caffeine was about to be my best friend. Surprisingly, Shepard was nowhere in sight, leaving me alone to hunch over my coffee with Garrus and Mordin. The salarian hardly needed the caffeine, but Garrus looked like he was even less of a morning person than I was.

"Shepard woke you up too?" Garrus grunted. He pulled his cup of the dextro equivalent of coffee closer to his chest before basically shoving his face into it, breathing in the warmth.

"Yes," I grumbled back, shifting to settle on the hard bench. "She is not a gentle person. At least we can do _team bonding_ over our mutual irritation towards her."

"Right, _team bonding_. Apparently something I said put that idea in her head. I take it all back," he moaned. He paused a moment, still breathing the steam from his coffee, and brightened before continuing, "At least something about waking you up broke that annoyingly bright and chipper attitude. She basically ran off the deck. No idea where she went, but she better show up for this damn breakfast. If I'm here, she's here."

"The commander exhibited markers for human sexual frustration. However, elevator stopped on deck two, not commander's cabin. Likely will continue to be agitated upon return," Mordin prognosticated, oblivious to the horror crossing my face.

Garrus, however, was nonplussed and only chuckled darkly into his cup before commenting, "Well, aren't we all?"

I let out a tense breath and gave a small smile at that, relieved at the turian's ability to soldier right through a potentially awkward conversation. Perhaps someone would need to have a discussion with the salarian about what was proper to discuss between team members, especially regarding the commanding officer. _Although_, I thought, noting the gleam in Mordin's eye, _He probably did that on purpose to entertain himself. _

I returned the companionable nod Garrus directed at me before he returned his attention back to his coffee, hating how well the commander's stupid plan at bonding was already working. That I was slightly fond of Garrus was using too strong a word, but I at least mildly accepted the turian sitting across from me. I was brought out of my reverie by the bell being used superfluously by the mess sergeant, standing two feet from us, to alert us that the food was ready. I stood and quickly piled scrambled eggs into a bowl and grabbed a few pieces of toast. The eggs were made from powder and we were lucky we even had real bread, but it actually smelled pretty good and my mouth began to water before I even made it back to the table. After the first bite, however, I made a mental note to have Shepard grab some better groceries while we were on the Citadel. Oh, who was I kidding? I would get the groceries. I would need to remember to calculate how much we could spare from the budget on some better food. My list for the day was steadily growing and dragging my irritation level along with it.

I paused with a spoonful of eggs halfway to my mouth as I realized Garrus hadn't rejoined the table. My attention had been broken by Jacob finally arriving on deck, fully dressed and bright eyed, and immediately starting to talk my ear off. I found I couldn't focus on his words, too focused on where Garrus was still standing holding a red tray with a red bowl that contained his dextro portion of the food. However, there was also a second red tray on the counter, this one empty, and he couldn't seem to tear himself away from it.

Shepard walked up behind him, seemingly out of nowhere; I hadn't even seen her enter the mess. She used her hand to tuck an errant lock of hair out of her face before placing it on Garrus' shoulder, murmuring something to him that I couldn't hear from my side of the room. Whatever she said brought him back to himself, and he smiled before giving Shepard a light punch in the arm, which the commander gracefully accepted with a smile before punching back. The grimace on Garrus' face showed she didn't soften her punch quite like he had. Shepard sent the turian over to join us at the table, but I watched as she brushed her fingers over the red tray before turning to grab her own food. I wondered what a single stupid tray could mean to the two of them, but I doubted I was going to get many answers.

The table was now starting to get crowded, and I started trying to extract myself from the larger group by scooting towards to edge of the bench. A black tray slammed down next to me, blocking my escape, followed by the heavily armored Shepard. Why the woman had decided to don her armor so early was beyond me, but it didn't seem to bother her one bit. Meanwhile, I found it maddening. She slid deliberately into my space on the bench, forcing me to scootch back towards the group to avoid being bruised by her armor.

Shepard fidgeted around on the bench to get comfortable before arching back in a quick stretch that sent a plated arm only a few centimeters from my face before she settled back and gave me a smirk, the stretch of her dark lips making the freckles on her cheeks scrunch up. I scowled in reply. There was absolutely no reason why someone should look so sexy while clad in heavy armor. _Sexy? What? Where did that even come from? Stop it, Miranda. _

Garrus sat down across from us, his shrewd gaze following me as I fumed at being blocked in between Jacob the chatterbox and Shepard's deliberate goading. My mornings were so much better back when they were _quiet_.

"Speaking of Tali…Have you heard anything from the old crew?" Shepard asked, looking up at the turian. _A-a-a-nd the non sequitur award goes to…,_ I thought.

"I used to get a few things here and there while I was on Omega, mostly from Tali. I didn't really want people knowing where I was or what I was up to. Liara snuck a few messages through, too, but she sent them with Tali," he answered. "Why? Have you not heard from them? I thought your inbox would be overflowing with congratulations—or maybe 'welcome back' is more appropriate."

"I thought so too. I expected something from Tali, at least after Freedom's Progress, but the only old friend I've had contact me is Anderson, and that was for the Council. I guess I'm not easy to get a hold of, but I thought at least Liara…" Shepard's voice broke, and she stopped, pointedly shoving down a mouthful of eggs instead. My stomach dropped, and I tried to school my face into something that passed as disinterested. "I was told Liara was an information broker now. She could've found me if she wanted to, and Tali is a tech genius that would've found my omni-tool address within seconds. I think Tali concerns me the most" _Liar_, I thought. "She actually saw me, but still doesn't want anything to do with me. I can't think of any reason for her ignoring me…except that she didn't believe it was me."

"Everyone has bad feelings towards Cerberus, you included. It's hard to accept that you would ever work for them, or with them, whatever. You were dead, have newly red hair, and we're a stubborn bunch, Shepard," Garrus replied, talons drumming absently against the table as he made his points. "Besides, as much as I hate to say this, it's been two years. Everyone has other responsibilities. Have you tried reaching out to anyone yourself?" Garrus asked, now raising an eyebrow towards me that Shepard thankfully didn't notice since she was preoccupied with her food.

_Well, of course she has_, I thought to myself, _and no one has replied because they were never sent. _I was torn between trying to hide my guilt by slipping back into my room, and not wanting to make myself suspect by slipping away. The turian's eyes were now glued to me as Shepard confirmed that she had sent messages and still received no response. Much as I schooled my face into its blank business expression, I was sure his eyes still found the truth written across my face: that several crew members _had_ contacted Shepard. Those messages had simply been redirected to my inbox, as well as Shepard's outgoing personal correspondence.

"Well, I'm sure it's a simple mistake," Garrus replied to Shepard, although his eyes never left me and his voice lowered dangerously. The small amount of amiability that I had felt only moments earlier between the turian and myself now felt impossibly thin. I waited for him to voice his real suspicions, while I started coming up with reasonable excuses, deflections away from what I had done. "Probably a delay in communications; you know how these backwater comm buoys are. I'm sure you'll receive some replies _very_ soon. In fact, I would imagine they would get to you before we even reach the Citadel. Don't you agree, _Operative_ Lawson?"

The moment I expected never came. My eyes narrowed in suspicion, but I put on my usual condescending sneer while raising a perfectly arched eyebrow in the turian's direction. I didn't understand why he hadn't voiced his thoughts outloud to Shepard immediately, but his threat was very clear. Luckily, Shepard wasn't focused on the exchange between us. "Yes, I'm sure that's all it is. Cerberus runs all non-essential communications through a thorough screening process; even my personal mail undergoes the same treatment. They likely just haven't reached you," I replied smoothly. I ignored the voice screaming at me to tell her that her old crew likely didn't care enough to send a response. That was the reply expected of me by the Illusive Man; Shepard was not to be distracted by worries about former friends, especially Liara T'Soni. Garrus had no proof that her correspondence was in my possession, and I could easily dispose of them.

Only, I found myself unable to make the words form, not when the silence of her old crew was making Shepard question herself. Jacob had said that her actions on Omega had been harsh. It could be that all the silence from her friends was making Shepard lash out. Shepard believing that she was Shepard was more important than any orders from the Illusive Man, right?

_But for me, or for her?_

XXX

Garrus

The simulation program began to power up while the ground team prepared our weapons and checked armor connections. Breakfast had ended without incident, and now most of the crew was on the lower deck with us, antsy to get started. Looking over, I noticed Miranda putting a lot of space between herself and Shepard, and I sighed. Shepard's needling wasn't doing anything to gain points with Miranda. In fact, the look Miranda was giving the commander at that moment was the opposite of friendly. Both of those idiots had no idea how to play nice, and I was getting discouraged. Shepard wasn't giving the woman any reason to change her mind about us. The Illusive Man was going to turn on us, and things were going to get ugly without Miranda's support; I was sure of it. If only Shepard wouldn't be so damn _difficult_. I had no doubts that she could get us through this suicide mission of hers, but I had never known the woman to think past the immediate conclusion of her mission. For example, what the hell all of us would do once we're done and still sitting on a damn Cerberus ship.

I saw Jacob was eyeing the commander warily as well. I'd gathered that something had gone down on the last mission, but there was only so much I could get from eavesdropping. Shepard had waved off all my questions, and I hadn't even bothered to ask the Cerberus operatives, but I had a feeling about what could have caused it. That Commander Shepard possessed a wicked temper, a crack in her image of control, was a secret the Alliance worked hard to keep under wraps. She was their best, but more than that, Shepard played her part so beautifully for the cameras. I had once heard that Alliance recruiting almost doubled once they started using Shepard and her exploits for their advertisements. It was no surprise, then, that the Alliance would work hard to keep Shepard's flaws out of the limelight.

The warning sound of the training simulator brought my mind back into the cargo hold and away from Shepard. A countdown appeared projected on the ceiling and the ground team instinctively moved towards each other. The simulation couldn't actually inflict pain, so our armor was used not to protect from outside damage, but to deliver low level shocks when the enemies in the simulation landed a hit. The hardsuit displays, instead of displaying actual vitals and medigel levels now showed a healthbar for the simulation. I held my rifle which was empty of a thermal clip but possessed an attachment that synced it into the program. The gun wouldn't actually fire, but the simulation would know where the shot was supposed to land. It even took into account the actual weapon mods used on the weapon, including modified ammo. I had to admit that I was impressed with the training setup on the ship. When Shepard had described it as simple, I had expected a shooting range and paper targets. Seeing the orange grid begin to lay out across the cargo hold, I smiled wryly. I knew better than to listen to Shepard, Queen of Tragic Understatements. _There might be a few Geth, Garrus. It's only a plant, Garrus. I'm a little out of practice with the Mako, Garrus. _I found myself

A beep from my suit indicated that it had synced fully with the program and the new display flickered into view on my visor. The orange grid began to disappear, being replaced by buildings and objects. A stack of crates became a car and the shuttle was now a building, providing actual cover within the simulated program. I was definitely impressed. I didn't recognize the location, but the way the humans were looking around told me that it must be either somewhere or Earth or a famous human colony.

A countdown began, projected on the ceiling that, at the moment, looked like a cloudless blue sky. When it reached zero, I heard the shuddering breaths of husks and their infamous shambling run. I felt a rush of power as I scoped one husk and pulled the trigger, watching the simulation head explode in a very real manner. I couldn't help the bubbling of excitement that poured through me like electricity in my veins. This was my place, shooting next to Commander Shepard, and I grinned wickedly at every clean shot I made. There was no feeling like it, the triumph as adrenaline floods the body creating a single-minded focus. Every enemy screams a challenge and I answer back, squeezing the trigger in time with my heartbeat.

The husks got closer, too close for my sniper rifle, so I released the assault rifle on my back and went to town, smiling as Shepard went blazing by in a blur of biotic lightning. She looked as happy as I felt, each playing our parts in the ballet of battle. My breath began to come a little harder, this being the first exercise I'd had since the incident on Omega, but I pushed through and kept my focus on the very real looking husks. I could see why Shepard had chosen them as our enemy: not everyone had had the chance to fight husks, though I knew there had been a few on Freedom's Progress. From what Shepard told me, even that had been nothing like what a normal husk onslaught was, with dozens of them coming from all sides and the occasional ones that snuck up behind you with an iron grip that made you fight for your life.

A horn blared and the projection began to fade away, showing once again the cargo hold and an orange grid. I saw Miranda kneeling on the ground a short ways away, raven hair shrouding her face as she breathed heavily. I walked over and offered a hand, but Miranda scoffed and pushed to her feet on her own.

"Why, Lawson," Shepard said stalking over, "I do believe you just died." An armored hand pointed to a ceiling where a huge red X was flashing on top of Miranda's name.

"Stupid husk got on my back," Miranda panted angrily. "I couldn't get a grip on the bloody thing."

"You're a biotic, Lawson!" Shepard said impatiently. "Why the hell didn't you use them?" Before Miranda could answer, however, Shepard had whirled towards me, green eyes flashing. I held my hands up in protest, taken aback by the sudden turn of events.

"And you!" Shepard growled. "You were next to her the whole time. Why didn't you get the damn thing off her? This is training, not play time. You should have been paying attention."

"Sorry, Shepard, Miranda," I replied apologetically. I had gotten so caught up in the moment I had forgotten to look out for the team, but I was also surprised at the fire in Shepard's eyes and the angry passion radiating off her. Only as soon as I made the observation, the moment was gone, replaced by Shepard's usual aloof calm.

"Again," Shepard called, and waved for the program to be started again.

XXX

Miranda

Everyone began to match off into partners, following the order to start the sparring portion of our training this morning. Several Cerberus crew members had accepted the invitation to training and, though the simulation was reserved for the ground team, they eagerly paired with each other for some good natured competition.

Garrus was grabbed immediately by Zaeed, who muttered something about wanting to see 'what's so goddamned special about Archangel' while Jacob was giving me not so subtle looks to join up with him. However, no one jumped to face off with Shepard, who stood with arms crossed in the center of the room after Garrus was taken. Suddenly, she looked like the kid who realized they were about to be picked last in gym class. The feeling in my stomach told me I would regret it, but I found myself walking towards Shepard.

I wasn't expecting the wickedly seductive smirk that stretched across her face as I approached, and Shepard immediately began removing armor pieces. Soon she was only in a black tank top, shorts, and white trainers. Muscles rippled in her shoulders with her movements, and I admired her toned arms as they reached down to lace up her shoes. When she finally turned to face me, my heart fluttered. She was just so small without her armor, shorter than me, especially in my heels, that I had the ridiculous urge to wrap her in my arms.

That was my first mistake.

Being distracted by her size was something I'm sure many others had done moments before they died. She held such confidence in herself that one always recalled her being taller, larger than she really was. In the meantime, the woman was quick and vicious, barely giving me time to throw my fist up to block her attacks. Every hit rattled straight in my bones, forcing me to remember that she was so much stronger than her small frame led you to believe. I, of all people, should have known not to underestimate her; I had bloody rebuilt her. I had also been the one to give her the upgrades.

I couldn't hold out against her onslaught, barely getting two hits in, and I instinctively forced her farther away with my biotics to catch a breath. Shepard's jaw dropped indignantly in surprise before her body began to glow blue with her own biotics in response. I kicked myself and quickly tried to put more distance between us as she prowled forward. Of course I would be stupid enough to open our sparring to biotic use. I was going to have some bruises tomorrow.

I realized too late that backing away from her had been the wrong move. I should've moved back in, giving her too little room to attempt a charge. Now, I had little option but to brace myself for impact as Shepard lit up like a blue Christmas tree. A pained growl ripped from my lips after the first charge hit me, knocking me back several feet to land on my back with an undignified thump.

I stayed still on the ground in shock, trying to recover my senses. Unfortunately, I now understood firsthand why her charges were so effective. While Shepard's height was average, she was also rather petite, even with all the muscle she put on. She simply didn't possess the body shape and mass to use brute force like most vanguards. Instead, she had learned to hone the charge into a point that she directed at weak points of the body, causing the opponent to crumple incapacitated in pain, at the expense of them not being thrown a long distance. I begrudgingly admired the tactic, gingerly moving the hip joint Shepard had targeted. It was fine, likely only bruised. Shepard had pulled the punch,so to speak, not aiming to actually shatter bone, which is what would have happened if this were a real fight.

I got to my feet, throwing up a barrier as Shepard threw herself forward again, her face locked grimly in determination. Her biotics cut sharply through the barrier, its wide area focus unable to hold against the concentrated lance of her biotic charge. The victim was my lower abdomen, causing me to double over as I tried to put air back in my lungs. The pain began to radiate outwards like little spokes of needles moving through my body, but I reluctantly straightened once again. I found myself missing more and more the beginning of the match when I had been simply fending off her fists. At least then I had been somewhat of an opponent. Now, I felt like a living punching bag.

I saw Shepard smirking smugly at me, and suddenly the pain caused rage to well up inside me. I widened the stance on my feet again and concentrated on her as Shepard prepared another charge. From her body language, I realized that she wasn't even trying to finish the match; Shepard was toying with me, and I became angrier and angrier at being bested. Me, a woman engineered to be perfect. This time, right before Shepard released her biotic power to propel herself forward, I threw a quick burst of energy at her legs, causing them to sweep behind her. My timing was dead on, and Shepard's built up biotic charge had no where else to go but out, slamming her hard into the ground where she barely managed to throw up an arm that prevented her head from bouncing against the metal. I took the moment to close the distance and flip her over, but she grabbed me and flipped us over so that she was on top, pushing me into the hard ground. With a grunt, I gained the top again, winning the struggle against the still dazed Shepard. With one arm holding me up, I wreathed my other fist in biotics, ready to deliver a punch that would knock her into oblivion.

The amusement in her green eyes caused my arm to stop, the biotics still flickering around my knuckles. Recognition that I had won the match trickled slowly into my mind as I tried to control my breathing. The anger drained out of me, allowing the haze of bloodlust to clear from my vision. I glanced down at Shepard below me, who was actually smiling the first full smile she had ever given in my direction, the warmth even seeping into her eyes.

Suddenly my body was hyper aware of Shepard's below me, all lovely curves pushed into mine. Her toned muscle stretched out against me, and my skin was electrified at every point of contact, making my very fingertips tingle. Heat was pulsing through us after the heavy sparring, and Shepard's deep breaths only pushed her breasts harder against mine, making it hard for me to keep breathing in return.

Our faces were so close I could count every freckle that scattered across perfectly sculpted features, made all the more lovely by the flush that glowed across them. Green eyes watched me curiously, studying my reaction as my heart hammered in my chest; I was almost certain she could feel it thrumming against her. I found I couldn't drag my gaze away from the inviting curves of her mouth. I would look up into her eyes, only to be dragged down by the singular desire I held to feel her lips against mine.

Before I realized what I was doing, the biotics disappeared from my hand as I lowered it to trace my fingers across her newly scar free cheek, my thumb brushing over her lower lip. Her eyes darkened with what might have been desire and her lips parted under my thumb. I dropped lower, wanting so badly to crash my lips against her darker ones, and she hadn't made to turn away, her bright green eyes still locked on my face.

Everything seemed to hang still, my lips a mere breath away from hers as we stayed locked in place together. All it would take was for me to move that last centimeter lower and...

"Hey, Shepard! Nap time is over; I need someone who can actually match me," Garrus yelled over at us, causing Shepard to jerk away. I shook myself as I hurriedly clambered up and backed away from Shepard, who instead of looking disgusted like I'd expected, simply looked confused. She spared only one glance for me as she turned and walked away to Garrus.

XXX

Hours later I found myself trudging wearily through the endless virtual paperwork associated with being the head Cerberus operative on board. The Illusive Man didn't actually read all of the reports, usually, trusting the people he put in charge to do their jobs correctly, only pulling out the mission reports if something went wrong. But Shepard was no ordinary mission, and he was overseeing the operation directly, even pinging my omni when he felt he had gone too long without a report. When I had received a message from him earlier requesting the latest update, I had been tempted to shut down my omni-tool and pretend like I hadn't gotten it until tomorrow, especially since my body still hurt from the beating I took during training. However, I eventually gave in and positioned myself at my desk to type up the reports.

_Like the dutiful little operative that I am,_ I snorted to myself.

I reached for my coffee cup and took a deep swig. Unfortunately, that particular cup happened to be a day old and stone cold, and I quickly reached for my water to dilute the awful taste in my mouth. I really needed to start disposing of my coffee once I was done with it, then I wouldn't end up abusing my taste buds so often. I grabbed the correct cup of coffee before I pulled up the next report to be sent off, and I scrounged up the reviewed version that Shepard had so gracefully dropped off this morning. Shepard's suggested edits were ridiculous, and I couldn't decide if she had actually meant for me to change them or if she was simply screwing with me. It was likely the latter; Shepard was clever and had to know she didn't get to read the real reports: the ones I sent separately to the Illusive Man. Meanwhile, my duplicity meant twice the work for me, and I couldn't seem to keep my head off of my desk this late into the night.

It didn't help that my thoughts continued to gravitate towards that moment with Shepard during training. It had been so intense; I had truly wanted to kiss her. But no, I pushed the thoughts away quickly. I didn't think of Shepard like that, and she certainly would never be mine, not in that way. I had simply gotten lost in the heat of the moment.

It was understandable, I reasoned, that I came to care about her after working on her for two years. But there was no reason why my feelings should be anything more than that. Kissing was absolutely out of the question.

I reread through Shepard's personal messages as a distraction, rereading some again as I anxiously planned to release them back to Shepard. None of them contained anything that should distract Shepard from the mission; they were simply friendly notes asking Shepard to contact them and tell them she was alive. I organized for them to be routed back through the Cerberus system and into Shepard's mailbox at staggered intervals. The messages would show as having gone through Cerberus screening and they wouldn't suspiciously arrive at the same time.

I withheld only two: a message from Shepard's mother and one from Liara T'Soni. I kept the one from Hannah Shepard simply because I knew of the strained relationship between mother and daughter and I didn't think Shepard could handle her mother's lighthearted message that was so impersonal and so without actual caring that it put my teeth on edge. I had the world's worst father, sure, but at least he had cared about me, even if it was only concern for his investment and legacy.

I had put away thoughts of sending Liara's message almost immediately. Even though she was the one Shepard most wanted to hear from, I couldn't risk this message disrupting the mission. The Illusive Man wouldn't stand for it, and it was my job to keep this mission on track. Even against Garrus and his veiled threats, I wouldn't reveal this one; Shepard would almost certainly turn for Illium. Besides, Liara had only sent one message when it had now been weeks since my message telling her that Shepard was alive. She obviously didn't care enough to try harder.

**From: T'Soni, L**

**To: Shepard, Commander**

**Shepard,**

**I honestly don't know if you'll even receive this. No doubt Cerberus has your messages tightly monitored. It is also likely that you now know of my involvement in Cerberus' acquisition of your body, and if you hate me for that, I'm sorry. **

**I just need you to know that, if it's really you, I still love you. The thought haunts me that you might not truly be Shepard, and that your return is a cruel false hope. But if this is real, come visit me on Illium. I have too much here to leave and find you; I hope you'll understand. Neither one of us may be the same person as two years ago, but all the same, I'd like to see you. **

**Hoping to see you soon,**

**Liara**

My gut twisted every time I read the words: **I still love you**. Shepard wouldn't be able to resist turning away from the mission to visit Liara. Who knows what that visit could do? Right now Shepard was volatile, and I couldn't predict with certainty what she would choose to do, or what that would do to our mission. The mission. That's all I was concerned about.

_If you love her so much, why not come to us, Liara?_ I thought angrily. The asari almost certainly followed the _Normandy_'s movements closely-our mission objective didn't currently require stealth-and she could have found us if she had wanted to. There are even ways to get a message to Shepard around Cerberus channels, like someone carrying a message to her when we were on Omega. I would read the message, of course, and try to prevent Shepard from going to see her, but Shepard would at least know Liara cared.

The asari honestly wasn't trying very hard. Cerberus intelligence told me the woman was too obsessed in her hunt for the Shadow Broker, the obsession born when her mission to retrieve Shepard left that drell Feron in his possession. Why Liara was spending so much energy on that traitorous idiot was beyond me. Feron was probably dead already anyway. It was time for her to cut her losses and get out; one asari wasn't a match for the Shadow Broker.

The sounds of pots suddenly clanging together followed by loud cursing startled me out of my chair, causing my over worked muscles to scream at me. The sounds were coming from the mess, which was on the other side of the wall, and I hoped whoever it was would simply finish what they were doing and get back to their quarters. When another pot reverberated off the floor, I gave a groan and threw on my robe, angry at whoever was making so much noise at this hour. I started towards the door to tell off whoever was out there, but halted when the voice I heard through the door sounded a lot like Shepard. I hesitated, then turned on my heel to go back to my desk after making sure the lock on my door was still engaged. Sliding into my desk chair, I pulled up the camera feeds for deck three and selected the one trained on the mess. I snagged a pair of headphones and plugged into the console before switching the audio on and focusing on the screen.

Whatever I was expecting, that was not it.

I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing at the sight that was Shepard covered from head to toe in flour with various dishes on the ground around her. She had her arms crossed and was frowning at the mess.

"Care to share what you're doing there, Shepard?" Garrus asked, the laugh evident in his voice as he appeared on the camera from around the corner. A powdered Shepard turned quickly toward to the voice before crossing her arms defensively.

"I was trying to make some damn pancakes, if you must know," Shepard huffed. "but they put the stupid pans up so high that I can't reach them! Trust Cerberus to make it impossible to have a midnight snack."

"Oh, yes, I'm sure that's exactly what Cerberus was thinking: 'betray Shepard by keeping the crockery up high," Garrus laughed. "How exactly did they get the pancake mix in your hair then?"

Shepard shuffled her feet and frowned at the large silver bowl on the counter.

"I climbed onto the counter to get one of the pans, and then this _thing_," Shepard said motioning to the bowl, "decided to tip over for no reason. There's really no need to go into the details."

I honestly don't think I had ever seen someone glare so murderously at an inanimate object, but there she was, our fearless leader, one insult away from tossing the bowl across the room. The corners of my mouth twitched up quite against my will at the thought.

"Of course, Shepard, no need at all," Garrus said as he reached up to grab the pan Shepard was trying for earlier.

"Now you're just showing off," Shepard grumbled.

Garrus laughed and said, "Says the human who could've used her biotics to grab the pan in the first place."

Shepard stopped in the middle of setting the pan on the stove where she wanted it, her face falling into a deadpan expression at the comment. "Damn, I knew I was forgetting something," Shepard suddenly chuckled as she started to wipe the flour off of her.

The turian leaned back against the counter as Shepard tried to recover as much pancake mix as she could back into the bowl. She cracked the eggs in, mixed it up, and happily went about turning them in the pan. I was surprised at how…cheery she was.

"So, Shepard, not sleeping these days?" Garrus ventured.

I mentally slapped myself. Of course, that should've been my first concern when I saw Shepard out of bed at this hour.

"Ah, you know, the usual nightmares, followed with some new ones," Shepard mumbled, her emotional walls snapping up as her mood darkened. "You come out here just to ask personal questions?"

"No, I came out here to see who was destroying the kitchen," Garrus laughed, leaning an elbow on the counter. "But, seriously, anything you want to talk about?"

"No, we're not having this conversation." Shepard leveled a look at him and waved him off, her mood suddenly black. She was avoiding his eyes, but I felt a small flicker of admiration for the turian when he ignored Shepard's words and kept talking.

"C'mon we've been having these midnight meetings for too long for you not to tell me what's going on. It's not going to kill you to talk about it," Garrus said, before pausing and cocking his head to the side. "Death comments. Too soon, huh?"

That received a weak smile. Shepard continued her pancake flipping, flattening them with the spatula and watching the uncooked batter squish out from the underside. The silence stretched out, and I was starting to think that she wasn't going to give Garrus an answer at all when Shepard finally looked back over to the turian. "Fine," she said motioning him to follow her as she grabbed her newly made pancakes and moved to the table.

The silence at the table stretched long enough that I start getting antsy in my desk chair. The exhaustion was starting to hit me hard, and I was out of coffee. I was desperately trying to keep my eyes open so I wouldn't miss Shepard's words, but it was getting harder and harder.

"It's the same thing every time," Shepard said finally, the words coming over the headphones to jerk me awake. "I'm back on Akuze and the acid is eating through my armor, then it starts to burn through my skin. I look up and..." Shepard started to say a name before correcting herself, "someone I care about dies in front of me," Shepard explained, looking sad before her face twisted up again. "Only now, instead of ending, it continues so I'm over Alchera again, suffocating and burning alive in the planet's atmosphere."

"Is that all?" Garrus asked, taking me aback. It was not said unkindly, but it was definitely not the comment I would've followed the confession with.

"Is that not enough?" Shepard snapped, eyebrow raised in disbelief.

"No, I didn't mean it like that. It's just," Garrus backtracked, fumbling for words, "you seem calmer than you used to on these nights. I would've guessed the nightmare was better, not worse."

Shepard looked distinctly uncomfortable, her face almost appearing...embarrassed. _But that can't be right_, I thought. Shepard shoved some pancakes in her mouth, but Garrus, experienced in the art of holding a conversation with her, continued to wait patiently, instead of changing the subject.

"It, uh, didn't end where I thought it would this time. It went to the first time I woke up on the Lazarus Station. I was freaking out, but then Miranda was there. She touched my arm and murmured something I don't remember before shouting at Wilson again. But I remembered that it made me feel _better_," Shepard recalled softly. "She smiled at me, the only real smile I think I've seen that woman give since. The nightmare didn't seem so bad after that."

"I didn't even even know I had remembered all of that until it popped up in that nightmare," Shepard continued, and then thoughtfully amended, "that dream. I woke up calm. It was the best sleep I've had all week."

I felt like I had been glued into my desk chair, a feeling I couldn't define trying to claw its way to the surface. I knew what I had said to her: _Shepard, you're okay. I'm here._ Her eyes had been wildly looking up at me, the panic so clearly screaming out of them. She would've felt paralyzed, unable to move limbs properly yet. I remember being surprised when she was able to raise her hand towards me. And I had gripped it softly and whispered to her like I would a child. I never imagined she would be able to recall that moment.

"So maybe you're open to giving Miranda a chance?" Garrus' voice came through the headphones, startling me.

"No," Shepard answered flatly, making my heart drop. "It was just a dream, Garrus. Miranda is Cerberus, and I don't even know her. I don't want to know her."

"That's not what it looked like earlier today," Garrus challenged. "Seemed like you two were getting along just fine."

Shepard narrowed her eyes at him. "Seriously?" she questioned, her fingers starting to drum against the mess table in agitation. "Fine, consider me conflicted. That's the best you're going to get from me," she growled, chewing on her lip in thought. "I hate you sometimes, you know that?"

"I love you, too, my friend," Garrus sneered back and Shepard just gave an exasperated huff. "You know," the turian continued, "you might get her to open up to you if you stop antagonizing her."

"Who says I want her to open up to me? Seems like you're the one who keeps bringing her up," Shepard scowled. She shoved another mouthful of pancakes in her mouth, chewing aggressively. "Besides, I don't antagonize her."

"Right," Garrus nodded sarcastically. "Because that would mean you don't actually hate her. So there wasn't a requisition form on your desk for a custom built housing complex for that stupid space hamster you just bought?"

_Space hamster house? _I bristled in contempt. I would never approve something so silly.

"It's just fun to see her get all riled up," Shepard mumbled, spearing another bite of pancakes with her fork. I sat back in my seat with the realization that for days she has been _playing_ with me.

"_Antagonizing_," Garrus reiterated with a pointed look.

"_Annoying_," Shepard countered, pointing her fork at Garrus. "If I have to deal with a pain-in-the-ass turian, the least I can do is pass it on."

Soon enough, the two of them cleared out of the mess and off to bed. Even with a blank screen in front of me, I continued to sit at my desk for a moment, re-rolling the headphones up with my fingers as I tried to process the emotions fighting for my attention. Forbidden schoolgirlish giddiness tried to climb its way to the top, but I hurriedly stomped it back down. Personal feelings were not relevant to my mission; I shouldn't care if Shepard liked me. Amusement at the dynamic between the turian and Shepard was the emotion that followed, and this one I allowed. The fact that Archangel has turned out to be such a close friend for Shepard was a big bonus for our mission, and I couldn't help but be pleased at the situation.

I looked at the reports that still sat unfinished, and I sighed. I wasn't going to get to those tonight, my eyelids already drooping again. I stood up out of my chair and stripped down, throwing the clothes in the hamper that sat in the corner of my room. With a hum of pleasure, I slipped under my sheets, the fabric cool against my skin and the bed soothing the aches in my muscles. As I drifted off, I could still feel myself smiling.

* * *

**Aaaand we reached the end. I do want there to still be some tension between the folks on the Normandy because there's no way they're going to trust each other very quickly. However, I was trying to build the foundation for them getting closer and throw in some fluffy relief before everything gets serious. Please leave a review and let me know what you think! Do you think the characterizations are on point? Am I staying consistent with my characters? Drop a line and tell me because I'd love to make this better. **


	9. Conflicted, Part 1

**Wow it's been a while since I've updated [insert excuses about real life here]. Some of you will notice that my pen name has changed, but don't worry it won't happen again. I opted for something different, and I figured it would be okay since my following is still pretty small. Anyway, I had planned to make up for the long absence with a big chapter, but it was a monster. So, I broke it into two halves. However, this means Part 2 shouldn't be long in the coming! As always, thank you to my beta AblatedCrayon and thank you to everyone who had faved, followed or reviewed! It makes my day to hear from you!**

* * *

Ch. 9: Conflicted, Part 1

Miranda

The climate control was on full blast in my room, and I shivered as the air current brushed against my bare shoulders. I hurried out of my uniform and into my robe, leaving my clothing in a trail behind me as I tried to make it to my bed and the warmth it promised.

I turned around as I heard the doors to the office open, sliding quietly on oiled tracks as my visitor stepped inside. She was out of uniform and wearing a tank top that stretched appealingly across her taut stomach. Her shorts were loose and she was strangely barefoot as she stepped towards me.

_This isn't right. She shouldn't be here. _

Shepard's hands found the opening of my robe as she tugged the two sides apart, her hands creating fire across my skin as they settled possessively on my hips. A strangled sound was caught in my throat, cut off so by Shepard crashing her lips against mine. She tasted of wine and cherries, and the smell of her hair and her skin assaulted my senses as she pulled me urgently closer, crushing her body against mine.

Shepard's dark red hair brushed against my cheek as she kissed me deeper, a hand sliding up from my waist to cup the back of my neck. The fingers of her left hand left trails of fire all across my body, while her right hand stayed firmly holding me in place, driving me crazy when her mouth followed her hand to the side of my neck. I tilted my head to give her more access, and suddenly I was drowning in the feeling that was Shepard. All I could see was her. She was everywhere, setting fire to everything and consuming me with it. I took a step back, uncertain why this was happening so fast.

"No, wait, Shepard, I'm not going to do this," I said, taking another step back. Green eyes regarded me in silence, hurt. "I don't want just a one night stand."

_Why was that? One night had always been enough for me before. _

Those emerald eyes lit on fire again as a smile stretch beautifully across her face and crinkled the skin at her eyes. Shepard stepped in closer again, once more slipping an arm around my waist until she could snuggle her face into my neck. She kissed her way up and along my jaw until placing a tender kiss on my mouth, tugging gently on my bottom lip with her teeth.

"Then take me forever, Miranda. I'm yours," she whispered in my ear, pulling us backwards to crash onto the bed...

Someone dropping a tray in the mess startled me awake. The clock showed five in the evening, and I groaned, stretching my neck from where I had fallen asleep on my desk. I hadn't realized how tired I had become, what with the late nights and the constant stress that Shepard presented.

I considered going to sleep early for once. The crew wouldn't miss me; most of them had quickly left the ship after we docked at the Citadel an hour ago. I doubted Shepard would come looking for me either. She had been in a strange mood all morning, retreating into the medbay with Chakwas after agreeing to meet the Citadel closer to 'morning' (even though it was always day on the Citadel) instead of immediately.

I grabbed my robe where it hung in its usual spot on the back of the chair, the same robe I'd been wearing in the dream when Shepard had pulled it open, fingertips leaving blazing trails across my ...No. I needed to get myself under control. That dream was just that, a dream, and it was probably only brought on by that crazy moment yesterday during training. I didn't really want Shepard here, touching me like that, trailing kisses downward.

I sighed in frustration.

Breakfast with Shepard and the team had been an emotional rollercoaster, with Shepard sitting too close to the turian and simple glances from her sending shudders through me. It meant nothing. I was in control. The urge to kiss her yesterday was a passing fancy, nothing more, and it happened to turn itself into a very vivid dream. I tried over and over to convince myself. I cared about Shepard, sure; I had started to accept that, but this? No, I couldn't handle that my protectiveness was becoming more.

_It's just stress. I'm overworking myself and need a release. Yes, that's it._ The explanation sounded flimsy even in my own head. Me, overworked? Nonsense. I thought once more of Shepard and the fire in her eyes as she kissed every inch of skin she could get, and how her fingers would feel on my hips as she pulled me towards her. I gasped, my hands gripping my thighs so hard they turned white. Dear God this shouldn't be happening.

I almost tripped over myself as I ran to the bathroom and jumped into the shower, letting the icy stream make me squirm and forget. It took minutes before the fire dancing across my skin seemed to calm down, and I twisted the dial to allow the water to get warmer while I actually washed my body. When I finished, I finally felt closer to normal so I pulled on my white suit and settled back at my computer. My intentions of turning in early were forgotten; there was no way I would be sleeping soon after a dream like that.

I resisted banging my head against the desk in frustration at the first message marked priority in my inbox. The sender's address read Ashley Williams, and the lack of rank behind the name told me the message was from her personal frequency, not the Alliance. No doubt this was yet another message that I would feel obligated to send on to Shepard, and then watch as they inevitably made her feel more alone than when she thought no one had messaged. At least then Shepard had been able to lie to herself and say the messages had been lost. Now she would be getting correspondence after correspondence telling her bluntly that they weren't willing to help. Ignorance was bliss, after all. If I had received these messages from my friends—well, in a world where I possessed more than one friend—I would be angry at them, too. I flicked my fingers across the console to open the new message.

**From: Williams, Ashley**

**To: Shepard, Commander**

I took a moment to muse how even Shepard's closest friend replaced the slot for her first name with Commander. Did she even know what it was?

**Shepard, I've been hearing some bad things. I know you're working with Cerberus and that you're on your standard hero trip again. I don't trust them, and I hope you don't either. **

**I can't say I'm not worried about you, Shepard. I'm hoping you're still the woman I remember. Anderson is still here protecting you, like always, and he asked me to make sure that everything is on the up and up before bringing you before the Council. No doubt you've already received his invitation. **

**Allow me to offer one of my own. I'm on the Citadel, hopefully your next destination. Mass relay records showed your recent jump this morning, making it evening tonight for the **_**Normandy**_ **to arrive here. If you're coming here, meet me at Rover's, that awful diner down in the Wards—you should remember it from that one shore leave—at 0900 tomorrow. Please, come see me before you go to the Council. **

**I hope it's really you, Skipper. Life's been really shitty without you. **

**Chief**

**P.S. Hey Cerberus Lady, if I'm right that you're reading this, tell Shepard about the damn meeting. I just want to talk.**

I knew for certain I wasn't going to let Shepard see this, nevermind actually attend the meeting. Seeing Ashley Williams could ruin any kind of acceptance and camaraderie that Shepard had built on the ship. It had been a little more than a few weeks, but she had finally seemed to settle in a bit better, and the training yesterday had seen her smiling as she got on the elevator. I had even witnessed her shaking hands with one of the Cerberus crew. That had to be a step in the right direction, and I wasn't going to throw out our progress, little as it was.

I was, however, curious about what Ashley had to say, especially since she was asking to meet before Shepard saw the Council. That likely meant that whatever interest Ashley had in Shepard was not officially on the books. So, was she just an old friend, sharing mutual concern with Anderson, getting in touch, or was there something more? I sighed; it must be the latter of the two. It would make my life too easy otherwise. Besides, she had known about me specifically, and I doubted Alliance intel was that good, meaning she talked to someone with better information...Liara T'Soni.

_Alright, it looks like I have a breakfast date_, I mused while trying to pin down what I would need to accomplish before setting foot on the Citadel tomorrow.

I would have to do some better background digging on Williams later; I knew precious little about her except that she had served with Shepard after Eden Prime. However, until then, I really needed some breakfast. My stomach growled on cue as I pushed out of my chair and away from the desk. Padding over to my door, I grabbed my boots that leaned against the wall and pulled them on before stepping outside. Dinner first, then recon on one Ashley Williams.

XXX

Garrus

"Talk to you later, Miranda," I said. Miranda gave a brief nod in my direction, her thoughts already engaged somewhere else. We had talked over dinner, though it had been tense and strained. I wasn't quite sure where I stood with her, and, frankly, sometimes the way she studied me made me uncomfortable.

It was an easy enough decision to turn for the back of the deck. I wasn't ready to hole up in the battery yet, and, surely, that lounge I had seen was well stocked. I considered turning around and inviting Miranda to join me, but thought better of it. While I was glad I had the chance to speak with Miranda, it had gotten a little more emotional than I had really wanted. She had alluded to her worries over Shepard; I hoped I'd said enough to put her mind at ease. Maybe if she wasn't so busy worrying that she had screwed up Shepard's head, she would actually start to be friends with Shepard. Or maybe be less bitchy. That woman was so closed off, she gave the commander a run for her money.

I shook off my thoughts and made a turn for the laundry room that abutted the crew quarters, stopping to grab my bag of clothing that I had dropped outside the door earlier in anticipation for the chore. It would have been nice to talk to Shepard a bit more since we hadn't had many chances to talk one on one the past week, but I had seen her head towards the medbay with a bottle. I took that as a sign that she wanted some time with Chakwas. I was glad to give it to her, especially after she was so...nice at the breakfast table this morning. Her moods were becoming difficult to keep up with; I found myself glad we had already established a friendship. Otherwise, I'd be afraid of waking up one day to her booting my ass out of the airlock.

Women.

I knew Shepard was getting excited to see another familiar face, especially since Anderson was pretty much her father. I'm guessing her relationship with her 'dad' was better than what I had with my old man. The minute I got all sentimental about seeing that grumpy bastard, he would open his mouth and remind me why I had stayed away for so long. Whatever, so long as Shepard seemed happy.

It was Shepard's happiness that had seemed to throw Miranda this morning, and I would bet my gun that it was the only reason the woman deigned to sit near me at dinner. While she had reluctantly shared her concerns, her questions had been pointed. So much so that I had become suspicious. Shoot, if I didn't know any better I'd almost think Miranda was jealous...

_Jealous_, I realized slowly, the word trickling down through my thoughts with some reluctance. Damn, that was going to screw up some of my plans.

I was pretty sure Shepard was still hung up on someone. I mean, to her, two years ago was yesterday, and I definitely knew there had been something going on with her back then. It started two years ago when a very drunk Shepard had very clearly filled me in on her sexual preferences. We had been spending so much time together, and she wanted to make sure that—and I quote—I didn't get any fucking ideas about her. Well, I wasn't an idiot. Shepard was hardly a subtle flirt, and she sure as hell hadn't been flirting with the men in the bar.

Then about halfway through our mission against Saren, around the time we defeated the Thorian, if memory served, Shepard got really private, even more than usual. She stopped flirting in the bars when we had the occasional night on the Citadel. That was when I knew she had found someone serious, though I couldn't figure out who it was. My bets were on either Ashley or Liara; they both spent most of their time around the commander and got all starry eyed when she walked in the room.

I suppose I couldn't blame Miranda, if my suspicions were correct. Shepard was something else, and this wasn't the first time this had happened with a crew member. Only most of the time Shepard was a dense rock-head and had no idea when someone had landed head over ass in love with her.

Still, the extranet had clearly said that female/female relationships were rare in humans. What the hell were the odds of this? I was deceived by faulty intel. That's the last time I would look up anything on EarthWiki, those bastards.

I guess I could just hope the women could reign in all their _feelings_ until the mission was over. Or maybe I should just be grateful that I wouldn't have as much resistance from Miranda as I anticipated.

Eager for a distraction from the stressful direction of my thoughts, I hauled my paltry bag of clothing onto my shoulder, happy when I saw the laundry machines were unoccupied. In the rush to get away from Omega, I hadn't exactly stopped to pack a suitcase, and now I was stuck with the underarmor suit and armor I had been wearing on Omega, as well as two casual outfits Shepard had found for me on Omega after picking up the professor. I hadn't wanted to show my face on Omega just yet with all the mercenary gangs still riled up, so I had requested Shepard pick something up. Unfortunately, Shepard was a horrible judge of size and both of the tops were big enough to fit a krogan—perhaps they were actually krogan shirts?—and the pants were horribly tight. I was making do, but by the way Shepard kept smirking at me, I was beginning to suspect she had picked up the wrong sizes on purpose.

Needless to say, I had been looking forward to the Normandy docking with the Citadel. I was planning on running to a shop to find proper attire later this evening. There was bound to be a few places open that would have what I needed. I wanted to go with Shepard to her meeting with the Council, and I refused to present myself in ill-fitting clothing. Secretly, I was thinking I'd need to keep Shepard, especially her mouth, in check. Councilor Sparatus was one of her least favorite people, and with the kind of enemies that Shepard had, that was saying something. Every time Shepard had reported to the Council during our hunt for Saren I had been afraid that she would start some galactic incident with them.

Even without tomorrow's meeting, I was determined to at least have something clean to wear around the Citadel tonight; my underarmor especially needed some cleaning. My only problem was that I had no idea how to work the blasted human machines. The Alliance had had crew assigned to laundry detail, including picking it up and returning it, pristine and folded, to my bunk. That didn't seem likely here. Even if there was a laundry detail, I had doubts the crew would extend the courtesy to the turian.

That's how I found myself staring at a small sign on the wall with uniformly printed lettering explaining, in simple sentences, how the machines worked. While I could easily maintain the Normandy's whole battery by myself, I still found myself looking at the laundry machine like it was about to open up and grab me.

_Okay, first instruction says to put soap into the tumbler. Right….soap, where would soap be? _I saw a large bottle across the room, and held it up for inspection. It smelled correct and was properly labeled so I twisted off the cap and measured out a capful.

_Huh, that doesn't really look like a lot of soap compared to how much room is in the tumbler. Plus, my clothes are rank. Better put in a few more. _Once I had put in enough soap, I loaded the clothing in, shutting the door until it clicked and turning my attention to the dials on the machine. They looked easy enough. I put it on 'normal' and told it to use hot water before pushing in the huge start button with a talon.

The digital display on the machine told me the load would be done in thirty minutes, so I scouted out a chair in the corner of the small room and settled down to wait, pulling up my omni-tool to check my messages. Or maybe I would just play a game or two.

It had been barely five minutes when the spinning of the machine didn't sound quite right. My eyes flicked up from the screen of my omni-tool to see white suds oozing out around the seal of the machine door.

_Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck. Shit._

The machine got even louder, the bubbles continuing to explode in nightmarish fashion. I tried hitting the power button to get the thing to shut off, but it was ignoring the command, and I was panicking. I didn't even realize I had begun yelling my curses out loud until Shepard burst angrily through the door.

"What the fuck is going on back here?" she bellowed, slamming through the door, but then halting at the sight of the mess on me and the laundry room floor. Her eyes flickered between me and the machine, several emotions warring across her looked like she was trying to decide between being pissed and laughing at me. Finally, she settled for giving me a smirk and walking around the machine to disconnect it from the power. She allowed the plug to drop dramatically to the floor, with a pointed look towards me. Because that was the obvious solution that I should have done. _Idiot_.

"Shepard, shit, I didn't mean to…" I tried to explain, before she waved a hand and cut me off.

"I should have know you'd be the one to break something first, Garrus. Damn, I just can't have anything nice. Next thing you know, I'll be commanding the Normandy SR-3," Shepard said, grinning at me.

"Yeah, yeah, you're hilarious. Some bubbles aren't even on the same level as a massive hull-shearing cannon. Meanwhile, we should focus on the important question here: how in the world are we going to clean this up?" I asked, my arms waving at the bubbly catastrophe around me.

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "We? _I'm_ not cleaning this up," she protested.

She let me feel a little lost for a moment longer before giving me that smirk that meant she was up to something.

"C'mon, let's ditch out. We can leave it to Miranda to handle," Shepard grinned.

"Woah, what? No, my clothes are still soapy!" I protested, pulling back against the hand she had put on my forearm that was now tugging me through the doorway.

"Your choice," she shrugged, letting go abruptly for me to stumble back.

"Damn it, Shepard," I muttered as she swept from the room. My baleful glare was lost on the back of her head, but I still followed her away from the laundry, crossing my talons that my clothing would get clean by some miracle, or a crew member, whatever came first. I followed the sound of Shepard's movements towards the starboard lounge.

When I walked in, I found Shepard in lying with her back on the ground and her feet propped up against the clear observation window. She didn't seem to be doing anything, just watching the stream of stars flash by. I shuffled over and joined her in her ridiculous pose on the ground, my huge feet thumping against the window.

"Why are we on the ground, Shepard?" I asked.

"It was cooler down here," Shepard responded, laughing for some reason. I shot her a curious look, but she just chuckled more and waved a hand. "Inside joke, I guess," she said, falling back into silence.

Shepard was the one to speak first.

"You know, I used to love watching the stars. I always dreamed of the day that I'd get to run off into the universe and do anything I wanted to. I was going to get away from those endless space stations and actually see the beautiful planets I had read about," she said. "Now, all I can think about when I look out there is how I suffocated and then was burned alive."

"Well, damn, Shepard you do know how to bring the mood down," I replied. Her head flopped to the side to look at me, and she grinned.

"Ass," she shot back, throwing an arm out to punch me in the side.

"You know me," I said, looking over my shoulder at her, "If you want a pity party from me, it's gonna be awfully short. Plus, I don't provide cake."

"Still an ass," she laughed. We laid in silence for a moment before she spoke up again, "I'm excited to go somewhere familiar again. I can't wait to see Anderson."

"I bet. The only familiar face you've had is Chakwas and this handsome perfection," I replied pointing at myself. "I bet he was thrilled to hear you were alive."

"Yeah," Shepard answered, the fondness evidence in her voice, "and he's already got me a meeting with the Council. His message was really short and not very friendly, but he's on the Council now and me being with Cerberus must put him under a lot of pressure. I could tell he's already trying to help me out though. He always did have my back, even when things went bad."

"You never told me how you two got so close. It doesn't seem normal for an Alliance captain to get so close to his subordinate," I said.

"That's because I knew Anderson long before I ever joined the Alliance. My mother, well, let's just say she never actually wanted children. Then she went and got divorced from my father while she was still pregnant with me, but fought to keep custody of me. Why, I never understood. I never met my father, and he died before I was old enough to try and track him down. As a single parent, my mother couldn't or wouldn't bring me with her on the ship, so I got shuffled from space station to space station, living with whatever family friends she happened to have there. I never stayed in one place for more than a year. Chakwas was my real mother, taking care of me whenever she had leave, but that wasn't always enough."

"Because I moved so much, my education was spotty at best, and eventually I just decided to stop going. None of my guardians ever really paid me enough mind to notice, or to care if they did. I did love reading, though. I read everything I could get my hands on, from plumbing manuals to quantum physics. I can't say I always understood everything, but I could usually get the gist. I learned most of my tech skills from books when I was ten years old, and figured out even more when I tested my skills on the space station systems," Shepard said, pausing to throw a mischievous smile my way.

"I got bored, and, with nothing better to do, I started getting into trouble. I found it was easy to get the other kids on the station to listen to me and follow whatever plan I had hatched up. Plus, we rarely ever got caught. I drove the station authorities nuts, but before they could ever figure it out, I would be transferred to a new station, the home dock of whatever new ship posting my mother was given."

"It was Anderson who eventually noticed the trend and tracked it to me. He knew my mother, but, more importantly, he was friends with Chakwas. He said I was a bright kid, and also realized how bored and miserable I was on those stations. He pulled some strings and made me Chakwas' assistant in the medbay when I was twelve. It's why I sleep so well in there: it reminds me of when I was younger and the medbay was my playground. I learned to help Chakwas with simple treatments, but mostly I helped her keep up with all the redundant paperwork. I loved it anyway. I finally got to spend time with someone who cared about me," Shepard's voice caught, and I quickly looked away to give her the moment to herself.

"Anyway, I was forever grateful to Anderson for that. And, I suppose, I was grateful to him for making sure I got my ass to the Alliance Academy," Shepard chuckled. "I was a stubborn child."

"I joined the Academy, not because I wanted to travel the stars, wanted to follow the family tradition, or because I wanted to fight for good in the universe. No, I joined the Alliance because on the night I was going to run away to some Earth university, Anderson introduced me to my future fiance. Her parents had been killed in a batarian raid on Mindoir, and Anderson was helping her get into the Alliance. She had all these grand plans of making space safe for humanity, so that other colonies wouldn't be hit like hers. I fell in love with her the minute I saw her, and suddenly I found myself following her to the Academy. To this day, I'm convinced that wily bastard brought her to me on purpose, almost like he knew she would be the key to get me there," Shepard said, shaking her head.

A fiance? My head was reeling. Shepard didn't wear a ring, had never talked about a wife. That must mean...oh.

The woman watched my face as I worked through to a conclusion, her eyes sad.

"When my fiance was killed on Akuze, and I survived, I didn't want to live anymore. I went off the deep end. Any fight was as good as the next. And yet, nothing made the pain go away, not with the kind of finality I was hoping for, anyway," Shepard scoffed in dry amusement.

"You'd think something like that would have shown up on your service record. In bold. Like: suffered crazy emotional break," I tried to joke. I was rewarded with a quick laugh.

"More than that: You'd think my whole service record would just come with a big ass warning label on the front," Shepard chuckled, before pausing and wrinkling her brow in thought. "Wait a second, you've read my service record, Garrus? What the hell?"

"Erm," I coughed nervously, "it wasn't a big thing really. Maybe we should just talk about it later, and you keep telling your story?"

She threw a dirty look my way, but kept talking, "Anyway, Anderson eventually knocked some sense into me, literally. Then he brought Chakwas to guilt me. I suppose you could say his methods were wildly successful."

"Why stay in the Alliance then? It sounds like you never really wanted to be there in the first place," I asked.

Shepard's head slowly turned to look at me, her eyes suddenly hard and serious. I had never seen this expression on her before. Her face was set in her usual aloof calm, but something else was swimming behind her eyes. She seemed uncertain, something she had never shown me before.

"I never did want to be here, Garrus," Shepard scoffed, coldly, and whatever soft emotion that had been in her eyes quickly disappeared. "Can you believe I have no idea why I keep doing all this? I should just leave, let someone else be the big hero. I never wanted this. Never this."

It wasn't her fault that those words made me feel like I had been punched in the stomach. I struggled for a reply but found nothing as the silence stretched out.

Shepard gave a strangled little laugh next to me.

"You know, all this, and somehow I'm still here. People just die around me, even when I'm not the one doing the killing. Good people, Garrus. But I'm always the one who makes it out, even when I didn't want to," Shepard sighed. "I guess I always thought it was just good luck or coincidence. But now, even when I did die, I was literally brought back to life. How twisted is that?"

"I...understand, Shepard. That's kind of how I felt on Omega. Hell, that's how I feel now. Even after my entire team was killed—after everything that could go wrong, did go wrong—I was still there, still fighting. Then, when I thought even I was lost, you swooped in to save the day. I guess you were my Miranda that day," I recounted.

"Thanks, Garrus," Shepard replied. But then she made a disgusted noise in her throat. "But please don't compare me to Lawson."

"Of course," I conceded, and the silence blanketed over us again. "Hey, Shepard?"

Her head turned towards me again, and she fixed me with that intense gaze that always made me feel...something. Like I was protected, but I was also the protector. Moments like these always reminded me why I would do anything for my human friend.

"It'll get better," I said at last.

"Yeah?" Shepard asked. Her eyebrows furrowed, but there was a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth as well.

"Well, at least I think it'll get better," I replied apologetically. "I'll let you know when I'm sure."

Shepard actually smiled then, slightly nodding before turning back to the window. Then her arm whipped out, catching me hard on the shoulder and breaking whatever peaceful moment we had been having.

"Ow! Damn it, Shepard," I grumbled, rubbing at the offended shoulder.

"Thanks for the talk, buddy," Shepard said smirking. I shot a fist out as well, hitting her on the arm closest to me.

"Hey!" she exclaimed. Her face looked surprised, but then that glint showed up in her eyes and I knew I was in trouble. Another fist flew and soon we were grappling on the floor, giggling like school children. Neither one of us could seem to get an advantage, and eventually we fell back to our places on the floor, out of breath and still laughing.

"Man I needed that," Shepard wheezed out, still clutching her ribs.

"Yeah you did. My mother always said that if you keep that serious face on for too long your mandibles will stick open and things will fly into the sides of your mouth," I said.

Shepard's face twisted with utter confusion, and I fell back laughing again.

"I guess it translates better in my language," I explained, finally standing. I brushed at my clothing and then offered a hand to Shepard to help her up.

We walked to the elevator and said our goodnights when it stopped on the main deck to let me off. The elevator continued to take Shepard up to her cabin while I headed for the airlock. With all of my clothes thoroughly ruined, I had even more of a reason to go shopping tonight on the Citadel. Hopefully, I'd be able to find everything I needed in one store so I could come back quickly. My bunk was calling my name, and tomorrow was a big day.

* * *

**I do realize that the plot had slowed some in this (and the next) chapter, but the information was important. I have every intention of picking things back up again, so no worries! However, writing these characters in first person can get really challenging, so I'd love to talk about it with some of my readers. What are your opinions on how I have them written? Reviews and PM's welcome!**


	10. Conflicted, Part 2

Ch. 10: Conflicted, Part 2

Liara

All I could think about was how clean my fingernails were. I had been staring at them for Goddess knows how long, thinking how silly it was that something so small could bring up a wave of nostalgia. There was a time when, at this point in the day, I would be gathering my tools and packing them away before returning to my little camp. I would pull out my little pointed file and start cleaning the dirt from underneath my fingernails—a ritual that eventually became comforting instead of unpleasant.

My fingernails had never been fully clean in those days. In fact, not a part of my body could boast of cleanliness when I was out in the field, gathering dirt into new crevices of my skin with each passing hour. As a young doctorate student whose theories were largely discounted, I had very little money for my research and even less to spend on actual equipment, not unless I was willing to break down and ask my mother to fund my expeditions. Which I wasn't. Benezia had been against my fascination with the Protheans from the very beginning; I wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of begging for her help.

I had traveled with the bare minimum of equipment, not like the full camps with showers that some of the more esteemed doctors were able to tote around with their full staff of associate professors and graduate students. I was lucky to have so much as a wet washcloth to use on my digs. At the very least, it made me feel a little less disgusting when I could wipe my face and hands off.

Here on Illium, I was still digging and searching for secrets, but now the people were very much alive and the dirt was only figurative. _I miss being able to wipe the dirt off_.

I tore my eyes away from my hands and back to the two datapads placed in front of me. Two such ordinary pieces of technology shouldn't be able to represent such a turning point in my life. One would send me back to Shepard, but the other would allow me my revenge. If I smashed them both to pieces, could I go back to pretending like I didn't have to make a choice?

"You always have a choice," Shepard always said. Why did it always have to be a choice with her? She was always pushing at me, pulling at me. She was a refuge and a storm all at once.

I closed my eyes.

**Two years ago**

"_Babe, if you want it, just grab it. I told you I'd get you anything you wanted," her voice said, appearing next to my ear before she snuggled her face into my neck. Her arms wrapped around me from behind, and I sighed, completely content._

_I turned around in her arms, placing a quick soft kiss on her lips. She smiled back at me, eyes crinkling at the corners. There was a softness in her eyes reserved only for me, and I imagined the same look shone through my eyes as well when I looked at her. Not for the last time, I wondered that I had ever been given something so extraordinary as love._

"_And I told you I didn't need anything. Besides, I can buy it for myself," I responded, pushing out of her embrace to continue walking around the store, but she caught my waist again and brought me back._

"_I am well aware of your purchasing capabilities, Liara," Shepard said, laughing. "I'm just doing something nice. Let me get something for you. God knows I've got plenty of money sitting around."_

"_And I'm the one with an estate," I replied, winking playfully. Shepard's violet eyes twinkled at me as she let my waist go to grab my hand again._

"_Between you and me, our kids are going to be set for life, even if they do live for a thousand years," she said casually. I froze, stopping her with me when our hands yanked against each other._

"_Kids?" I squeaked._

_Shepard levelled that infuriatingly calm look back at me. Her eyes got all soft in a way that I had never seen during my time with her on the Normandy. She had always been so busy and stressed out by the mission, but here her eyes were only on me. It was something that I had always wanted, and yet, in that moment, her undivided attention was almost too intense. The way her eyes could manage to see right through me set my skin on fire and made my collar too tight_

"_Does that scare you?" she asked._

"_Yes," I answered honestly. "It's terrifying."_

"_I'm not saying now, or even anytime soon. Just letting you know that I've thought about it," Shepard said gently. I wished I could meld with her in that moment, show her my real thoughts beneath the panic clearly showing on my face, anything to wipe the hurt that flickered across her face. But we had yet to discuss those boundaries, and I had gathered that most humans valued their minds as private. Speaking of boundaries..._

"_Shepard, we haven't even talked about living together, and you're discussing children?" I said, hoping I wasn't sounding too harsh and wishing the panicked squeak would leave my voice._

"_I hope my intentions towards you have always been clear, Liara. I am in love with you, and I don't do things halfway," Shepard said, smirking at me the way she does._

_I didn't realize she had steered me towards the jewelry store, until we were standing in front of the case. I looked down at the section she had stopped in front of and saw they were all asari bondmate bracelets. Her eyes were clearly on a beautiful silver woven bracelet with sapphires and diamonds. It was simple, but tasteful, exactly something Shepard would pick out. The attendant was smiling at us expectantly, but I couldn't find a way to move from the spot I was in._

"_Would you want one of these?" Shepard turned and asked._

_And suddenly I felt so overwhelmed. Shepard was looking at me, waiting patiently with that look that said she knew exactly what was going on in my head. I pulled my hand free and moved quickly towards the door, doing the only thing I could manage at the moment: escape._

_There was a long pause before I heard the steady pace of Shepard's footsteps behind me, but I didn't stop until I had made it back to the car we had rented for our stay on the Citadel. Hastily sliding into the seat, I dropped my head into my hands._

_I loved Shepard, and I wanted everything she was offering me, but for some reason I continued to shy away from it. My instinct was to panic, and it made no sense. Our first night together on the Normandy I thought I had moved past all of these feelings. Then again, there was a very real possibility we weren't going to be alive the next day. Now, with the future so very open before me, talking about bonding and kids just scared me to death. I didn't know how to do relationships, not to mention marriage. I could be a terrible wife. Goddess, I definitely didn't know how to be a mother. Oh, what if I turned out just like mine?_

_Shepard stepped gently into the driver's seat before looking down into her hands. Her face looked uncertain for the first time since I'd met her, and it made my chest ache. I reached over and grabbed one of her hands, pressing my lips to her knuckles._

"_I'm sorry," I whispered._

"_No, no, it's my fault. I knew you weren't ready yet. I'm sorry," Shepard said earnestly, looking up to catch my eyes._

"_You do know I want all those things, right? I just...I just need time," I said, and then I panicked for a new reason when I looked over and realized a fourth of her life could already be over. I didn't have an abundance of time. Blast these stupid feelings._

_Shepard just smiled at me, those perfect teeth showing beneath the lips I was addicted to._

"_I'll wait, Liara," she said. "It's your choice."_

Those words, _I'll wait, Liara,_ bounced bitterly in my head now. Shepard was still waiting, and things were still balanced by my next choice.

_I just can't, _I thought angrily, blinking back sudden tears_. Coming back now doesn't erase two years of pain. No matter how much I love her, Shepard is always going to leave, one way or another._

The memory of a perfect silver bondmate bracelet flashed across my mind, and I slammed my palm against my desk. The sting pulled me away from my self-loathing, but the action caused one of the datapads to go spinning towards the edge of the desk. I reached for it now, staring at the meager information my informants had dredged up on the Shadow Broker's location.

The mere thought of the Broker caused white hot anger to lance through my chest, but it was an emotion that was easy to welcome. Anger was good; anger was familiar. The Shadow Broker wouldn't be able to hide forever. Without distractions, I could make the Shadow Broker regret ever crossing me. He took Feron. He tried to give Shepard to the Collectors. _The Collectors_.

I took the datapad on the left, the one that read **Elise Nissa** across the top, and shoved it violently in my desk drawer.

_I guess I made my choice_.

XXX

Ashley

It was quiet. That was the reason I liked this bar: it was out of the way of usual traffic. The corners were occupied only by locals—and me. I had stumbled across it during one of my many shore leaves on the Citadel; it quickly became a favored haunt away from the noisy soldiers that dominated the bars near the docking bays. Today, however, I wished for the noise to take me from my thoughts in a way that alcohol could never manage. I needed distraction, not blurriness.

So I continued to nurse my first drink, shaking my head whenever the bartender asked if I wanted a refill. The turian working the counter had come to recognize me, by face if not by name, since I had never given it, and he seemed mildly perplexed by my unusual restraint. Maybe I was surprised myself.

_I could see Shepard tomorrow._

I didn't really expect to. That Lawson character seemed more than capable of keeping me away from her, according to the limited information I was able to dredge up from the Alliance sources. I was a small fish, and I would never be given access to anything important. But what little I read was certainly telling. The woman was at least competent, and, at most, formidable. If Miranda Lawson wanted me away from Shepard, I rather think she would succeed. I was a soldier, unversed in the subtleties that might maneuver me around the Cerberus operative and gain access to the commander. Or perhaps I simply didn't want to know, didn't want to use the words I had rehearsed in my head for hours at a time, so I'd be prepared when I saw Shepard again. I was avoiding, in much the same way as Liara, I suspected. _Some brave soldier I am_.

This was why I needed the distraction, to make the voices quiet down. So many things vying for my attention, the stress, the worry, the guilt. I longed for the days when things had been simple, when I had been so far down in the chain of the Alliance that the most I'd had to worry about was the shit armor assigned to me on a planet I thought would never see action. Then I had met Commander Shepard, and, like so many others, she had pulled me up to her level so that I could never quite drop all the way down again. My name was known, and soon the promotions had just dropped in my lap. Because of her.

She would give me that look if she knew I was thinking like that. That stony stare that brokered no argument when she told me flat out that she did nothing, that it was my friendship that got her through everything anyway. She told me she needed me, that she couldn't have done it without me. It was probably a lie. She would have done it anyway.

It had been a long time since I had had a hero. They had always let me down, were never what they claimed to be. It was the same with Shepard, but it also wasn't. I had been disillusioned like the rest, believing the tales of heroism the Alliance liked to promote about its best soldiers. I had thought her perfect. Was I disappointed when I finally met her? I couldn't even remember; those days had flown by so fast. Then I was working with Shepard, and it was like I had known her my entire life. I realized those vids weren't even about the same person. My Shepard was real, flawed, and I _trusted _her.

I had trusted her, and then she was gone. She had reversed the Williams curse, had changed me with it, and none of it felt the same without her there. She was the center, the eye of the storm, rock steady in the face of opposition. I felt...uncertain sometimes without her guidance. Never would I have been given an 'off the books' assignment like this one now if not for Shepard. I used to have a clear chain of command. I followed orders, like a true soldier, like a Williams. Then I had been pulled out of it; I was still Alliance, but my chain had been broken and above me was only Shepard.

It had been strange, slipping back into the routine, the salutes, the different ranks displayed on different shoulders. Hints of rebellion would now slip into my thoughts when a superior gave an order I disagreed with. Time and again I saw the commander standing next to me with that cocked eyebrow and a smirk that meant she was mentally giving the finger to the asshole in front of her.

Would I go back to the life I had had before I met her? It had been simpler, but better? I wasn't sure. With every report back to Anderson, I felt more uncomfortable. He thought I was the best person for the job because of my connection with Shepard, thought I might be able to get close to her where others would fail. I would be able to see a difference in Shepard, if there was one to be seen, whereas Anderson was certain to only have a few short moments with the commander, not enough to evaluate anything except the most glaring changes in personality. But this assignment wasn't what I wanted. I missed being able to see my enemy and shoot it. There was no enemy here. Well, there was Cerberus. But they had put their logo on Shepard, and I couldn't find the will to truly despise her if she was the same underneath it.

Movement at the door drew my eyes up, the draft of the door opening stirring the stale air of the bar. I looked away from the light that flooded in with it, cursing the Citadel for the perpetual day. I had never really gotten used to the cycles of the Citadel when there was no night to call a halt to the activities. It made sense. Many of the species didn't even sleep the same amount, like how I would sleep eight hours when a salarian would sleep two. Plus with perpetual day, the commerce never stopped, convenient for the constant flow of ships in and out of the Citadel's docks. The Citadel was the center of everything, a heart that could never stop.

The man who stepped through the newly ajar door looked vaguely familiar to me, though I couldn't place why. He and the three other humans that trailed in his wake wore the same black and white uniforms, nondescript if it weren't for the various jackets worn over them. Each of them had chosen something to cover the torso of the uniform and I immediately tensed with suspicion. Had all the jackets been similar, or even the same color, maybe it would've passed my notice as just another strange happening that I had seen on the Citadel. However, one of the males was even wearing this gaudy red thing that had obviously not been made for him. It made it all the more obvious that it was worn to cover something.

I finally placed a name with the man I recognized, and found myself crossing the bar to join them at their table, certain my suspicions were about to be confirmed.

"Mills," I said, a certain amount of disgust filtering into my tone that I failed to suppress. The man in question looked up in surprise, his eyes shifting quickly to the door before coming back to her face. She didn't miss how his hands unconsciously reached up to clutch the lapels of his jacket closed, making sure the logo on his uniform was hidden.

"Chief Williams," the man returned, and to his credit, his voice remained steady. "I didn't expect to see you in a place like this."

I settled myself easily into the chair across from him, ignoring the worried and hostile looks I garnered from his companions.

"I rather think you were hoping to avoid any Alliance tonight," I shot back, leaning towards him, but he didn't flinch.

"That I was," Redmond Mills admitted. He shrugged before motioning to his attire. "Most of us didn't bother with civilian clothing. There is little room for personal effects as it is. I never imagined we would presume to boldly dock at the Citadel."

"She's here?" I asked, settling on the one simplest for Mills to answer instead of the millions tumbling around in my brain.

"Yes, though I believe she remained on the Normandy after giving the crew leave. I heard her tell Garrus that she wanted to get some rest before her meeting with the Council tomorrow," Mills offered the information easily. He said nothing of Shepard meeting with me tomorrow, but I expected that, either because the invitation hadn't been passed on to her, or because it was information Shepard was unlikely to share. I prickled a bit at his casual reference to Garrus, like the turian was just another part of life, easily working with Cerberus. I guess I hadn't expected Garrus to raise up a fuss; he likely didn't care as long as he was at Shepard's side to protect her. I may have been wary of him at first, but his loyalty had never been a question for me. I could at least admit I felt relieved that Shepard had him watching her back. _Especially while I'm not_, my traitorous mind added.

"I'd heard you left for Cerberus, Mills. I didn't want to believe it," I accused.

"Yes, yes I did. I freely admit it, and I regret nothing," he threw back, cheeks coloring slightly in anger.

"Why?" I asked, my voice coming out a little louder than I wanted. I hadn't intended to get into this argument when I had initially decided to speak with him. "You were Alliance like the rest of us."

"Look, ask anyone who's joined Cerberus, and almost all of them will give you a good reason why they're there. You want to know why I left the Alliance? Someone approached me and offered the funds to pay for my daughter's treatment bills. I'd been struggling to pay for over a year; soon I wouldn't even be able to give her basic care. Jenny was going to _die_, Williams. They gave me the solution: I work for them, and Jenny gets everything she needs," Redmond Mills explained heatedly.

"And after? Once she was fine?" I shot back.

Redmond heaved out a sigh. "Williams, I'm not naive. I know Cerberus has done horrible things. I realize, even though Jenny's treatments are done, that the option for me to leave will never come. But where would I have gone anyway? The Alliance never would have taken me back, something I'm sure Shepard will discover tomorrow as well," he said pointedly, his expression all at once sympathetic to his commander and antagonistic to me. "The thing is that they never asked me to betray the Alliance, never asked for secrets. They've done bad things, sure. But they've done some good too. My daughter is alive. And so is Shepard, and we're going to save those colonists, too."

I deflated quickly, shoulders relaxing as I fell into a chair next to her. I motioned for the bartender to bring a round over, and the Cerberus crew that had been cautiously watching me gave some nods of thanks. When they were occupied in their own conversations, I turned back to Redmond.

"Do you remember who approached you, who recruited you?" I asked in a low voice.

Redmond looked surprised at the question, but gave an easy shrug. I waited for him to say the name, almost positive it would be one Miranda Lawson. Good, I wanted another reason to hate her. Though technically her actions saved his daughter. _No. Hate, focus on that_. I was so convinced of what the answer would be that his actual answer didn't even sound like words when a different name passed his lips.

"I'm sorry, what?" I fumbled.

"Elise Nissa. Or at least that's the name she gave me. I recognized her, though I couldn't tell you what her Alliance rank had been," he repeated.

The name was familiar, like I had heard it before. It's placement danced just out of reach, and I'm sure I looked pained in my effort to remember.

"Shouldn't that be a secret or something? I thought I'd have to convince you more," I stated suspiciously.

"It's not really sharing secrets about Cerberus personnel when the woman is dead," Redmond answered easily.

It was then that the last detail clicked into place, and I knew, I remembered _exactly _where I had heard that name before, though I didn't want to believe it. Storming out of the bar, I stumbled through the streets of the Citadel as I attempted to get to my quarters before everything hit me.

I knew the name because Shepard told it to me. Elise Nissa had been her fiance, before she died. Before Elise died in a thresher maw attack that had been orchestrated by _Cerberus. _Had Shepard known? Had she been _with_ Cerberus all along? Maybe Shepard had hated Cerberus, not because they killed Elise and her squad on Akuze, but because they betrayed Shepard personally as well. It would also explain why they would be the ones to bring her back, to bring her back into their service.

_These are just wild imaginings, Williams. Get it together. Shepard wouldn't _do _that. God, I hope not. _

My dash down the streets of the ward brought me past the glittering lights of the stores, neon signs trying to urge me inside. Instead, I kept my head down, desperate to get away from all of the _people_. There just wasn't any solitude on the Citadel.

Suddenly, I caught a familiar grey fringe at the corner of my eyes and paused, incredulously, at the sight of Garrus holding a shirt to his armor-covered chest. He seemed to be trying to estimate where the sides of his body actually were under all the layers, and he was obviously failing, if his huff of frustration was any indication.

Much as I longed to continue, I couldn't ignore the golden opportunity in front of me. I might not be able to talk to Shepard, but Garrus was the next best thing. Besides, if there was one turian in the galaxy that I might possibly like, it was Garrus. Maybe. And I'd sure as hell never tell him that.

"That one will fit you," I said, sidling up to the turian in question. If Garrus was surprised to see me, he didn't show it, choosing to level a look at me before turning back to examine the tag of the shirt.

"How do you know?" he asked, and his mandibles twitched. Was that how turians frowned or something? Was I supposed to know that?

"You sent a requisition back on the Normandy SR-1 for clothing from that brand. You never requested another size after receiving the articles, so I assume you got the size right the first time," I explained, motioning to the shirt he was still turning over in his hands.

"You remember that? When I don't? I don't know if I should find that amazing or...disturbing," Garrus hummed, examining me curiously.

"I was observant. And, uh, rather suspicious," I said, barely holding my face straight. I wanted to smile at him. Maybe I wanted to hug him? No, that would be too much, and I'd be instantly uncomfortable. But just hearing him again reminded me of the days when he had persistently bugged me until I had been drawn, reluctantly, into conversation. Eventually, I was joining in on the banter just like everyone else, even with the turian. I'm not sure who I surprised more: myself or, er, well, just myself. Liara looked pretty shocked one time too.

Garrus just laughed, eventually throwing the shirt over his arm and grabbing a few others in a different color before moving over to the pants section. I followed, feeling a bit like a lost puppy and definitely at a loss for words. Shrewd blue eyes looked back at me curiously, and I sighed.

"It's been awhile," I tried, instantly wanting to slap myself. _Small talk, really?_ _You fought Saren and a Reaper with this guy, Williams. Get it together. _Garrus nodded, but chuckled, continuing to face away from me while he purused. Why did I get the feeling like he was some wise guru waiting for a me to speak? Or maybe a hunter waiting for his prey to take a tentative step forward? _You know what? You should just stop right there._

"Is...Is Shepard alright, Garrus?" I stuttered, grimacing at how weak my words sounded.

"It sounds surprising, but...yes. I'd say she's doing just fine, all things considered," Garrus replied. He pulled a black pair of pants off a hanger and threw them on his arm with the shirts.

"I'm supposed to meet with her tomorrow. Maybe. I invited her anyway," I admitted, but Garrus just looked surprised. But then his brow furrowed and he looked mostly frustrated.

"I haven't heard Shepard mention it, honestly. I would imagine it didn't get to her," he mused, somewhat angrily, before he shook his head and sighed, "It's probably not a good idea for you to see her anyway."

My eyebrows show up. "Excuse me? What?" I exclaimed.

"It's just...Shepard has been so different these past few weeks, and I don't think it would be good for her to see you. She's different but still the same; I don't know how to explain it. I haven't talked to her about it, but I think it's because she finally feels _free_. I feel free anyway," Garrus said, struggling to find the words. "You remember what it was like before. She was always fighting the rules; there was someone always telling her she couldn't do it her way. Shepard doesn't like Cerberus, sure, but they at least gave her a ship and said, 'do it' without any strings attached."

"But Shepard was _born _for the Alliance. I just don't see how she could turn her back like that, not unless…" I trailed off as my brain filled in _unless she's been a traitor this whole time_.

"We both know Shepard can do great things. That doesn't mean she has to do anything with the Alliance. They left her. We all left her. And Cerberus gave her back. Now we're the only ones doing anything about those colonists. We _will_ get justice for them," Garrus growled vehemently.

I took a step back, and tension seemed to fall out of my shoulders with my resignation. Hearing Garrus talk about Shepard so passionately made my concerns about her loyalties seem so trivial.

"I just want to see her Garrus. If you say she's still our Shepard, I'll believe you. That's what I'll put in my report. But I'm only asking for a few minutes. She was my friend," I sighed. "I just want to see her for myself."

Garrus relaxed, bringing the back of a taloned hand to rub at his forehead in defeat.

"She's never going to show up to wherever you invited her. Miranda must have kept the message from her or Shepard wouldn't have planned to meet a potential team recruit in the morning," the turian explained. "But she'll be meeting the Council at 10 GST. I'll see if I can get her there a little early."

I resisted another urge to hug him. "Thanks, Garrus, I owe you," I promised.

"Yeah, yeah. Now, tell me the truth," he said, holding up a pair of red pants, "do these remind you of Wrex? Because I don't think I could pull that look off."

"Probably don't even chance it. You're already halfway there with that scar on your face," I joked.

"And here I thought you hadn't even noticed," Garrus hummed, carefully maneuvering the scarlet pants back onto the hanger.

"It's like half of your face," I stated seriously.

He looked shocked, eyes wide as he looked at me, before his teeth bared out in a smile followed by a hoarse chuckle. I wheezed out a strangled cough when his hand thumped against my back, a little harder than what I'd consider a friendly tap, but he just laughed again, this time a little happier.

"It's good to see you again, Williams," he said.

* * *

**Wow, sorry for the wait everyone. While I planned for this chapter to follow quickly after Ch. 9, I never anticipated how much of it I would rewrite. It is very much different from the first draft, but so much better. How are the Liara lovers hanging in there? Doing alright? Hang on to your pants because it'll get worse before it gets better. **

**Thanks, of course, to everyone who has fav'd, followed or reviewed! And a special thank you to my beta Ablated Crayon, who sticks with me through all my nonsense. I'd love to hear from everyone, so tell me what you think!**


	11. Soft

Ch. 11: Soft

Miranda

I carried the two cups of steaming coffee carefully into the elevator and deftly stuck out an elbow to hit the button that would take me to the top floor. I was feeling surprisingly cheerful about the day ahead, in spite of the fact that I hadn't had a proper night's sleep in well over a week, and my blood was probably mutating into pure coffee. But what was new? I was finally going to handle the situation with Ashley Williams, evaluate the situation with Shepard and the Council, arrange better food supplies for the Normandy, and maybe, if there's time, even get to do some non-essential shopping. Perhaps some new boots? But, no, my Cerberus issued ones were in stellar shape, and I didn't really need any more. There was just something about today that made me feel optimistic, like I could go a little crazy. _Oh, _I decided, _I'll get a little plant for my desk. That's fun._

The elevator doors whirred open, revealing a dimly lit and, curiously enough, empty cabin. I was momentarily stymied; Shepard should be up by now. In fact, only a few minutes ago, EDI had informed me that Shepard was in her cabin. I took a couple hesitant steps in before calling out, "Shepard?"

I walked in farther, setting down the coffees on the desk before waving my hand on the wall panel to bring the lights to full strength. I could see the pristinely made bed—probably a habit from all of Shepard's years in service—but the woman herself was nowhere to be seen. A noise from the bathroom caught my attention, and I turned to face it. _Bingo_.

I hesitated. Bothering someone in the restroom was usually a horrible idea. Plus, I hadn't exactly announced that I would be coming up. But this was important; we needed to discuss how to turn the meeting with the Council to our best advantage. It's why I brought coffee as a peace offering. _Bloody hell, I should've just had EDI tell her I was on my way up. What was I thinking?_ Pressing at my temples in frustration, I let out a sigh and moved for the bathroom door and, as an afterthought, activated my barriers.

Decided, I tapped a fist against the door and immediately heard the crash of something falling to the floor followed by a flood of curses.

"Shepard?" I asked again, leaning close to the door so she could hear me. "I mentioned I was leaving the ship early this morning for an appointment, but we still haven't discussed what you should tell the Council. This will only take a few minutes."

"Lawson? How the hell did you get in here?" an outraged Shepard growled through the door.

"This is a Cerberus vessel; I'm the highest ranking Cerberus officer on this ship. I have access to every door on the Normandy," I stated, easily slipping into my best business tone. Shepard gave a grunt, and I could almost feel her scowling at me through the metal sheeting.

"I don't need hand holding, Lawson. I already know what I'm going to say to the Council. It starts with 'up' and ends with 'yours'" her muffled voice came through the door. I sighed. She must have heard me because she spoke up again, "Don't worry so much. I can handle those three just fine."

"I highly doubt that. Hanging up on them when you get angry is hardly 'handling' anything," I groused. "Especially since you didn't read the memo I sent you about it. You do realize it tells me when you've read it, right?" The silence that followed informed that, no, she had most certainly _not_ known that.

There was another noise from Shepard's side of the door, like metal banging on metal. I could hear Shepard quietly mutter, "How in the world do these damn things _work_?" There was another loud hammering before I was finally fed up and hit the door control.

What I saw caused my mouth to drop open in horror.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" I screeched in panic, snatching the scissors out of her hands. The teeth were open, but Shepard had been unable to disengage the child's lock, preventing the protective coverings from sliding back to reveal the sharp edges.

I probably should have thought about my next actions; Shepard had made it perfectly clear how she felt about people touching her. And,honestly, I should've just been grateful that Shepard was dressed when I opened the bathroom door or I'd likely have been brutally murdered. Before those thoughts registered, my hands were on the sides of her head, turning it this way and that so see if she had managed to take chunks out of her hair with some other instrument.

I hated how _familiar_ it felt, her skin under my fingertips. I remembered long hours of leaning over her, my movements precise, clinical. Yet, only those few weeks ago, I had casually turned her chin this way and that, lifted an arm for a better scan or moved her gown out of the way to check that her final skin grafts were still healing properly. And if some of my touches had unintentionally lingered, on her cheek or on her wrist, well, it was all _strictly_ professional.

Now my hands were being roughly pushed away, accompanied by a scowl and dark eyes that threatened pain in my future. A shiver ran through me.

"Stop. I'm not your experiment anymore, Victor," she snarled. _Another Frankenstein joke. I wonder if she'll ever tire of them. _"Don't touch me."

I narrowed my eyes at her, but nodded slightly, backing back out of the restroom. Shepard slowly followed me out, eyes scanning the area before she reached for one of the coffees I had so carefully carried up here. She grabbed the one I had already been drinking, moving too quickly for me to say something before her lips were on the rim. My nose wrinkled in displeasure, but I sighed and let it go, reaching for the other cup—black, not the perfect amount of cream and sugar that the _other_ cup had held.

"This coffee is shit," Shepard threw out causally, setting the coffee back down and nudging it away from her. I just barely contained my huff of exasperation, briefly shutting my eyes to calm down and remember what the real problem here was.

"What's wrong with your hair?" I asked, figuring that directness would get me everywhere with Shepard.

"It's too long. The Council is already going to have trouble believing I'm actually me. I thought getting back to my old haircut would help. Damn hair always gets in my way when we're fighting anyway," Shepard explained condescendingly, like I should have guessed it.

"Then we will take you to a professional. They can cut it and dye it back to blonde for you _without_ you making yourself look like a three year old's Barbie," I asserted.

"There's not enough time to get it fixed before the time I set to meet the Council. I thought of that," Shepard said, lips pursing together.

"Then pull it back into a regulation bun. All of your old pictures have you wearing your long hair that way. Before you cut it all off after...," I bit my tongue when I accidentally stumbled into hostile territory.

"After Akuze? Yeah, I remember," she snapped.

I braced myself for more venom—I would be professional and handle anything Shepard threw at me—but it never came. Shepard just sighed and paced back to the mirror, tugging at one of her dark, auburn tresses.

"I could help you, if you wished," I offered, trying to sound offhand like the thought of running my hands through her hair wasn't causing the fluttering in my stomach.

"I don't need any help from you, princess," Shepard spat, and it took all my willpower to keep my mouth tightly shut, the sheer effort of my restraint causing my teeth to grit unpleasantly. _And of course she's come up with another irritating nickname._

I thought I had gotten used to Shepard's attitude towards me. _No_, I shook myself, _I had mistakenly believed that she had softened towards me. _The odd thrill I'd previously gotten from our verbal sparring was absent in that moment, and suddenly I found dealing with her to be tiresome, oh so tiresome. Giving a tense nod, I whisked both coffee cups away—I'd already decided I would just dump both and get a new cup—turned on my heel, and headed for the door.

"Damn it, Lawson. Don't leave," Shepard said, the sound of her voice causing me to instantly still only a few steps from the elevator.

"I have no idea how to even get all my hair in a bun, not to mention get it to look nice," she admitted with an awkward shrug.

I narrowed my eyes at her in suspicious disbelief. "You've done it before. There are pictures," I stated.

"Someone else always did it for me," Shepard confessed, her voice coming out slightly strangled, but her eyes warned me away from inquiring further. Though, now that she mentioned it, it did make a certain amount of sense. Since being on the Normandy, the closest she'd come to a hairstyle had been a crude, sloppy braid, most often replaced by just tucking her hair into the top of her armor and slamming her helmet on top. I hadn't really thought much of it; her short hair had been choppy and messy as well.

"I suppose someone had to try and get you away from the homeless orphan look you're sporting now," I tried to joke, taking in the tangled mess of red standing out in odd places around her head.

The joke fell flat—_like I didn't know _that _would happen—_as Shepard glared at me once again.

"Well, it's a look I had my whole childhood to perfect," she scowled.

I stilled again, unsure where my misstep came from this time. Shepard wasn't an orphan—her mother was well known in the Alliance—and, while she had moved often, she could hardly be considered homeless. I tried to shrug off the moment, and I moved to stand behind Shepard, somehow knowing that she wouldn't ask me for help twice.

I pulled her desk chair into the restroom and placed it in front of the mirror before motioning for Shepard to take her seat. She sneered at me before complying, following her need to make absolutely _everything_ difficult, but, eventually, she was settled and looking at me warily. She wasn't actively scowling anyway, so I called that a win.

I started with the uneven fringe that fell across the right side of her face, deciding to french braid it into place. Once done, I pinned it securely and moved to gather her hair up into a ponytail when my fingers brushed softly against the sensitive skin behind her ear. Shepard let out the softest sigh, and I froze. Her eyes flickered up to mine in panic at the same time as me forcing my face into something normal, and a pretty blush spread across her cheeks before she hid it behind her usual scowl.

My stomach was already doing that fluttery thing again, but I pushed it aside and kept working. I knit my brows in concentration as I tamed every unmanageable hair into place, content when everything looked smooth and neat.

When I glanced into the mirror again, Shepard's scowl was gone, instead replaced with confusion, and I had to agree. This was so domestic and...weird. Sure, I had brushed out her hair before during her reconstruction, but I had never had her eyes focused on me with so much _intensity_. I twisted her ponytail around itself, sticking several pins in until I had a perfect bun, happy when I could pull my hands away and put some space between us.

"Done," I announced, breaking the silence with a sigh of relief.

"The braid is crooked," Shepard said turning her head to the side, her face completely serious but her tone surprisingly playful.

"You couldn't have mentioned that at the beginning?" I huffed, moving around to inspect the braid again. "I don't see it; it's fine," I argued.

"No, no. It's crooked," Shepard said, just as smug as I had been initially. "You can leave it, but I just thought you would want it to be perfect."

"I was engineered to be perfect, Shepard. That doesn't mean everything I do _is_ perfect," I replied, rolling my eyes. "And there's nothing wrong with the braid." I couldn't help grabbing the last word.

Shepard's eyebrows pulled down, flummoxed, as she asked, "Wait, what? Did you said you were _engineered_?"

"Honestly, Shepard, I included a background on myself with the original Cerberus crew roster," I sighed. "No wonder you haven't made any snide comments. You never read it."

"Didn't you say you could look to see if I've opened the files you send me?" Shepard countered.

My lips might've twitched up at that. "So I did," I answered.

My omni-tool gave a beep to remind me it was time to head downstairs if I wanted to remain on schedule. I still needed to change for my meeting, and I wanted to eat a small breakfast so I wouldn't be required to stay at the restaurant with Ashley Williams on account of my stomach.

"I'm out of time," I said, frustrated. "Please, Shepard, just read the memo I sent you about the Council. I'll be in there, but it's not like I can slap a hand over your mouth to keep you from saying something stupid."

Shepard scowled at that. "Fine, I'll read the damn thing. Now get out," she ordered angrily, waving an arm towards the door.

"And don't forget to meet with Kasumi Goto today," I reminded her. I breezed past her, grabbing my coffee from the desk and heading for the door. Just as I reached the elevator, I heard her clear her throat behind me. Sighing, I paused and ventured a look behind me.

"I, uh," Shepard started uncomfortably, and I felt myself arch an eyebrow in question. "I think I'd like to hear about the whole 'engineered to be perfect' thing," she finished, dragging her eyes away from her hands to me with a now defiant gaze, as if daring me to be difficult.

"You could read the file," I observed, raising an eyebrow.

"I'm not big on reading," she stated, crossing her arms against her chest. It was a lie; I knew for a fact Shepard kept an electronic library with hundred of titles just a touch away on her omni-tool.

"I think I'd like to hear your thoughts on your reconstruction," I replied, seizing an opportunity.

"Worried about your experiment still, Lawson?" Shepard accused, her scowl and hostility returning with a vengeance.

"Did you expect anything else?" I asked simply, finally stepping across the threshold to the elevator. I hit the button for the crew deck, but kept my hand in the door, waiting for her answer.

"I guess I didn't," she replied. I could've sworn there was a flicker of disappointment, but, no, that couldn't have been. She turned her back on me, and I removed my hand to allow the elevator to close.

XXX

Ashley

Seeing the _Normandy _again had felt like a punch in the gut, but I couldn't help myself. After that revelation last night, I had found myself aimlessly wandering until I stumbled across the docking bay of the _Normandy SR-2_. So, not so aimless wandering then.

The ship was still beautiful, sleek, polished, and so familiar it could have flown right out of one of my memories. The new version was bigger and there was an obnoxious Cerberus logo sullying her side, but it still felt like a homecoming. I ached to walk on board like I was two years younger, and Shepard didn't seem like she was an ocean away from me. But two Cerberus officers stood monitoring the _Normandy_'s airlock, their eyes honing in on me the moment I had gotten close. No doubt they had already been warned about someone matching my description.

It had taken me two hours to finally leave the dock, turn my head away and pretend like everything was fine for the dozens of Citadel citizens milling about. The clock on my omni-tool told me I was only a few hours from Shepard's meeting with the Council, so I started in that direction. One shuttle ride and a stop for coffee and a bagel later, I was lounging in the surprisingly comfortable curved chairs outside of the Council's conference chambers.

Unfortunately, my breakfast was interrupted by an unwelcome Cerberus operative stepping through the doorway.

I'll admit: I was expecting more black, probably leather. I thought her off-hours outfit would be something similar to that Cerberus uniform she'd been wearing in Liara's photo. Instead, Miranda Lawson strutted up to me wearing a blouse the color of pale sunshine. It was tailored perfectly to her, naturally, and a small ruffle went up the center to a third button that was deliciously strained. It tucked into a white pencil skirt, all above a pair of white, thick strapped heels that crisscrossed up and then circled around her ankles.

It was a style that almost made her look, well, _soft_ with all the bright colors and feminine flair. No, that wasn't the right word, not with those legs—which, by the way, were even more impressive free from the catsuit. To top it off, when Miranda paused and bent over to adjust a strap on her shoe, I saw the bottom of what was most likely a small firearm strapped to her upper thigh. How she managed to get that past the C-Sec checkpoints, I had no idea. But, no, soft was not a word for this woman. Perhaps I could make due with describing her look as soft_er_, at least softer than I would ever have imagined her to be.

She made her way primly over to where I sat and sank gracefully into the seat opposite me before holding out a hand with a smile.

"You must be Chief Williams. It's so lovely to finally meet you," Miranda said. Her palm was warm when I slipped mine into it, and, once again, I was thrown. What was I expecting? Ice cold? A robot? With the smile and not a trace of a Cerberus logo or color scheme to be found, Miranda Lawson was so very much like a _person_ that I had a hard time dredging up my hard won animosity. I tried to remember all the horrible things she had possibly done, like Thorian creeper experiments or watching thresher maws kill people for research, but I really had no way of knowing if she'd been in involved in any of that. _Could someone do something so horrible and still be able to smile like that?_

I wondered if she had dressed that way on purpose. _It's certainly disorienting,_ I admitted to myself. My enemies were usually in armor, carrying guns and generally looking scary and intimidating, but this woman was instead almost aggressively beautiful. The only thing I might call scary about her was the dangerous glint in her eyes, something Miranda couldn't quite hide behind a pretty shirt.

Everything was so very far from what I was anticipating. Then again, this woman could just be used to putting on different faces_. _

"You found me. Naturally," I replied roughly, gesturing around myself to the Council's chamber's receiving area. Embarrassingly enough, I hadn't expected Miranda Lawson to come looking for me. It was an oversight that reminded me how out of my depth I was. I usually shot my enemies, and there was a noticeable lack of _talking_.

"Of course, you were expecting Commander Shepard. I apologize. She is busy with other things this morning and asked that I meet you instead. I'm Miranda Lawson, Shepard's second-in-command," she explained.

"Busy, my ass," I tossed back at her. My rudeness was only met with a carefully arranged, cold smile, and it irritated me that she looked particularly unruffled. "I bet Shepard doesn't even know that I'm on the Citadel right now."

"It is lamentable, of course, that Shepard couldn't make time to see such a dear, old friend," Miranda schmoozed, "but I'm afraid it is just _impossible_ for her to be here."

"Yeah, sure," I scoffed, slouching down in my seat. I looked like a sulky teenager, but I resented that my spite and hatred was hard to hold onto when Miranda was being positively nice. "How in the world do you people even get on the Citadel in the first place? Cerberus is known as a terrorist organization by almost every government here."

"I'm sure you'd find it disheartening to discover how very easy it was," Miranda replied haughtily, her lips curving briefly behind into a smirk before settling back into the 'pleasantly neutral' expression that she seemed to have mastered.

"Whatever. I'm here to see Shepard," I asserted. "And there's no way you're going to be able to convince me to leave."

"I don't think you appreciate the magnitude of what's happening here," Miranda responded, every word making their appearance with perfect enunciation. "We _need_ Shepard to help us save those colonists, something your precious Alliance is unwilling or unable to do. I won't let you try and break what has so far been a beneficial arrangement between Commander Shepard and Cerberus. People are dying, Chief Williams."

"Well I find it hard to see how meeting with me for five minutes could possibly break any agreement Shepard has with Cerberus, but that's just me," I sneered, leaning forward to watch Miranda closely. I briefly considered doing something dramatic, anything really, that might serve to frazzle this woman. I was never going to learn anything when Miranda seemed so obviously to have the upper hand. I let my anger spit out the most shocking thing I had in my arsenal, "It seems even more unlikely, considering how long Shepard and Cerberus have been buddies."

I finally received a reaction, but Miranda had the nerve to look surprised, blinking slowly before her face settled into a confused frown.

"Buddies? I'm sorry, what?" Miranda scoffed, her eyebrows pulling down.

"How long has Shepard been working for you?" I spat out in question. Might as well go for the direct approach, since I really wasn't good at much else. My subtle spy skills left a lot to be desired.

"Shepard has been essentially dead for two years, and only working in conjunction with Cerberus for the past few weeks. Before that, Shepard was an Alliance soldier," Miranda said with condescension before finishing with a sarcastic, "as I'm sure you're aware."

"And we both know plenty of Alliance soldiers willing to moonlight," I growled, my hands clenching in my lap.

"I'm not entirely sure what you're accusing us of," Miranda stated. Her eyebrow quirked up in question, but the rest of her was calm. She stared back at me with the confidence of someone who had nothing to hide, or at least was an incredible liar. _Wow, this is frustrating. I'm gonna get nowhere, _I angrily glowered to myself.

"You expect me to believe that Shepard's fiance worked with Cerberus and she didn't? That she had no clue what the woman she loved was up to?" I shot back. I had come to the conclusion last night: Shepard had to have been working with Cerberus. How could she have missed Elise's treason otherwise?

Miranda actually laughed, white teeth flashing in amusement as she shook her head at me. If she knew something, she was skilled at hiding it. My accusations didn't even cause her hands to so much as clench. I took in every detail I could, but I saw nothing except a woman who was genuinely amused at my stupidity. _Damn it all_.

"Chief Williams, I assure you, I have done research into every possible aspect of Commander Shepard's life. I never came across any reports indicating Shepard's fiance worked for us. And it's just not possible that something so relevant to Shepard would not have crossed my desk," Miranda replied, the levity still carrying in her voice.

I wracked my brain, looking for something, anything, to come back with. Miranda was supposedly very high up in Cerberus, and I could hear the pride that came through her voice when she talked about Shepard. If this were me, the one thing that would irritate me would be being kept out of the loop...

"You can't have clearance for everything. Maybe the big man has some secrets of his own," I challenged. "Especially since Elise was killed by _Cerberus_ on Akuze."

Miranda's face finally twitched. It was small, but I caught it. _I must have hit a nerve_, I thought gleefully.

"Shepard has never worked for us before recently, and neither did her fiance. And if you came here just to tell lies to the commander, I'm afraid you won't have the chance. You're not going to jeopardize this mission," the Cerberus operative asserted, her tone instantly aggressive. _Yeah, I definitely hit on something_.

"I don't see how you're going to be able to make me do _anything_," I growled back.

But before I could manage another word, my omni-tool was ringing, the unique ring informing me the caller was from Alliance Command. A coil of dread dropped in my stomach, intensifying when I noticed a small smirk of victory gracing the face of Miranda Lawson. _This...cannot be good. And dammit I was just getting somewhere._ I raised two fingers to my ear to activate my earpiece and tapped a button to link the call through.

"Operations Chief Williams," I answered.

"Williams, you're needed back on duty immediately. Please grab your necessary belongings and report to hangar E13 for deployment," the voice crackled in my ear.

"I have business to conclude. I can report in two hours," I responded, scowling at Miranda, who was trying to look like she wasn't drinking in every word.

"Negative, Chief Williams. Your orders state immediately. Your new ship assignment will be leaving in 30 minutes," the operator insisted.

I bit my lip to hold back the reply I wanted to make and said instead, "Understood. I will be there," I confirmed. My eyes shot back to Miranda. How the _fuck_ had she pulled that off?

"This isn't over," I spat back at her, stalking towards the door.

She just smiled and said, "It would seem that it is."

My lip curled back in disgust. I contemplated yelling back that I'd see her on Horizon anyway, just to see her face, but I held my tongue instead. Knowing that Cerberus wanted me on Horizon was the only advantage I had at the moment, and I didn't want to give that up. I gave one last look at Miranda Lawson, who sat perfectly poised in the seat I had vacated.

_What a smug bitch, _I scoffed to myself.

XXX

Garrus

The shuttle ride back to the _Normandy _was more tense than I expected. Shepard sat across from me, shoulders straight and face grim, while she checked her omni-tool for the hundredth time in the same hour. I fidgeted in my seat across from her, but I decided not to bring up the subject that we were both avoiding: that she ran out on a mission without informing the rest of the crew or, more importantly, Miranda Lawson. Shepard was doing an admirable job of pretending like she didn't care what was going to happen once she got back on the ship, but I knew better.

We had been gone for over two cycles, leaving the _Normandy_'s XO in a state of panicked fury. After the meeting with the Council, Kasumi Goto had absconded with the commander, who, in typical passive-aggressive fashion, decided to go help our new team member without informing Miranda or requesting back-up. Luckily, I happen to see Shepard try to (un)sneakily get into a shuttle and leave without anyone seeing. She did, however, leave her omni-tool in transmitting mode, meaning that I could track her. So either she was incredibly careless or, more likely, she felt a smidgen of remorse for what she was about to do and was making sure we'd be able to find her.

So I had grabbed the _Normandy's_ shuttle and followed them to a nearby system and a planet named Bekenstein. Unfortunately, an hour into my ride over, I received a call from none other than Miranda. I should have had the common sense to let the call go to message, but I felt bad that she was probably back on the ship worried. I regretted the decision to answer the minute I heard the angry cursing in my ear. Turns out that flying off with the _Normandy_'s shuttle and still not telling Miranda that Shepard was gone was about as bad as Shepard leaving in the first place.

I managed to calm Miranda down, or at least convince her that flying the Normandy into our system would cause more harm than good at the moment, and she had hung up in a cold fury.

Now, one ship cycle and Kasumi's blown up shuttle later, the three of us had piled into the Normandy shuttle to take us to where our spaceship home hovered on the edge of the system. We were conveniently (purposefully) scheduled to arrive in the middle of the _Normandy's_ night cycle, but I couldn't blame Shepard for wanting to avoid the inevitable. No doubt the next few days with Miranda were going to be incredibly _pleasant _no matter what, and I could do with a few hours of sleep first.

Then again, I was stupid enough to believe Miranda wouldn't be tracking our every movement and be waiting in the shuttle bay for us. The shuttle touched down with a gentle thump, and I cursed when I saw her distinctive raven hair flash by the front window.

"Shit, wifey is here to tell you off, Shepard," I teased, pleased that I wouldn't be receiving the full brunt of the blame for our dash off into the stars.

"You did not just call her..." Shepard growled at me before she was cut off by the whip of Miranda's voice.

"Shepard," Lawson called icily. "I'd like a moment to speak with you."

Shepard stalked off with her, and I stood near by, close enough to interfere if needed (which I doubted would be necessary) but not so close that I could hear their conversation. They made it clear by walking away that they didn't want me to be a part of it, but I found myself reluctant to just leave. So I waited.

Miranda was talking fast but soft enough that her voice sounded like a low murmur in the expanse of the lower deck. Her spine was straight, her whole body so tense that I thought she might snap at the slightest push. She pushed her hair angrily out of her face as she continued to argue with Shepard, the emotion causing spots of pink to show on her cheeks.

"You don't know anything." Shepard's sharp retort came ringing across loudly as she crossed her arms defensively. Her eyes shot over to me and she lowered her voice again, her response biting back against whatever Miranda had said. I inched over to the weapons bench and tried to pretend like I was servicing my rifle. I'm sure I wasn't actually fooling anyone. I was out of Miranda's line of sight at least, but Shepard could continue to glare at me knowingly. My fingers kept fumbling with the parts as I continued to try and listen, my initial intentions to leave them to their privacy forgotten in my curiosity.

Miranda was obviously lecturing Shepard now, her voice getting louder and louder every time Shepard interrupted her until I could hear a clear, "It _is_ my business Shepard. It is my responsibility. _You_ are my responsibility." Her hand moved up and down, punctuating her statements.

Whatever Shepard said next must have been a low shot because Miranda's face grew dark and thunderous, her eyes flashing with unspoken threats. There was a slight lull in the _Normandy's_ engines and Miranda's voice was able to roll easily over the now quieter room. She spoke with malice and intent, even as I saw the hurt in her eyes when she snapped, "Then I suppose you're my greatest mistake yet, because you cannot possibly be the real Commander Shepard."

Shepard reeled back like she'd be struck, emotions flickering over her face in quick succession—anger, hurt, vulnerability—before settling into her cold mask of scorn. She turned on her heel and strode toward the elevator, her steps not even faltering when she heard me fall in behind her. When I turned around in the elevator, it was to see Miranda turned away from us, fists balled at her sides. Shepard didn't hesitate, punching the button for deck three with unnecessary force that crunched the button into the back panel.

She was deathly silent until the doors of the elevator slid open, a hand springing out to hold the doors. Shepard looked at me, her mouth twisted and angry as she searched for words.

"Need me to give you a night alone?" I offered, taking a tentative step out of the elevator. The breath Shepard had been holding came out in a rush.

"No, no," she declined, shaking her head for good measure. "Could you, maybe, grab some food and meet me up top?"

"Yeah, Shepard, I'm on it," I agreed, already walking out towards the kitchens and not looking back until I heard the elevator ding on its way upwards.

I took it slow around the kitchen, giving Shepard some extra time when I could easily have thrown a pile of food on two trays and been on my way. Instead, I made a show of it: two trays—one red and one black—each carefully arranged with the appropriate coffee, popcorn, grilled cheese, chips, and some chocolate chip cookies. It was easy enough, barring the extra time it took to make separate grilled cheeses, each painstakingly cooked with different utensils and pans to avoid contamination. I'd never had a grilled cheese before I'd met Shepard—they were apparently a very human thing—but I knew Shepard was fond of the sandwich for her many midnight snacks, so I made her two.

I heard the elevator shuttle down and come back up, spitting out Miranda as she brushed by on her way to her room. She cocked an eyebrow at my spoils but said nothing as she disappeared into her room. The doors whirred quickly closed behind her, and my stomach suddenly twisted in remembrance of similar scenes that used to happen on this part of the _Normandy SR-1_. Kaidan used to stand right where I was, in this area that used to not be a kitchen. Brown eyes would watch balefully as those same doors would click closed, shutting behind a wrathful Shepard after one of their famous fights. Everyone had guessed Kaidan's feelings for Shepard, but he had also wanted her to be someone she wasn't.

His head had been full of pictures of heroes and white knights that always saved everyone. I don't think even Shepard could have lived up to those standards, not that she'd tried. Again and again, they had clashed. Kaidan wanted to help them all; Shepard knew they couldn't and made the hard calls. They had fought almost every night, even if it was just for a few seething minutes. But I knew Shepard had respected Alenko, even if she hadn't particularly liked him. In the end, I knew it had hurt Shepard to leave him behind on Virmire.

Now I could see a similar story playing out with Shepard and Miranda. I huffed in frustration as I balanced the trays in my hands and started for the elevator. If Miranda didn't have that Cerberus logo, I knew Shepard would have taken to her quickly. It never would have been like Shepard and Alenko. Miranda was the perfect second in command for Shepard. Miranda knew how to be all business and get the mission done with all efficiency, something Shepard had always prided herself on. That is, until Shepard had died and come back with a knot of anger that crackled behind her eyes every time they swept across one of the many Cerberus logos tattooed around the _Normandy. _I worried more about Shepard now than I had ever done.

When the elevator hit the top, I stepped out in surprise to a darkened room. The lights in the fish tank had been turned off, leaving no indication of whether Shepard's latest batch of fish had survived the past few days. The glass case that held the beginnings of Shepard's model ship collection was turned a milky opaque, and, as I descended the steps to the bottom portion of the room, I could see that the projector in the far wall was playing a video against the white surface.

Shepard herself was perched in the middle of her bed, watching the screen with wide, sad eyes, looking very small against the expanse of her covers. I placed the trays down on the coffee table before dragging the whole thing over until it was pushed up against the end of the bed. I reached down and handed Shepard the grilled cheeses from the black tray, and then I settled in next to her.

It wasn't until I had gotten comfortable and taken the first bite of my own sandwich that I realized Shepard was watching herself on the screen. A few double takes and I could puzzle out a slightly familiar, young face composed of all sharp angles and freckles tossed against bronze skin. The younger version of Shepard looked uncomfortable in an obviously brand new uniform, smiling awkwardly at whoever held the camera.

Shepard shifted next to me on the bed, then brought up her omni-tool and turned the sound on. Suddenly voices were drifting around us, reminiscent of happiness and giggles, and I found myself grinning with the younger, blonde Shepard on the screen. A pale hand reached from outside of the camera frame to fix the side of young Shepard's hair, and I almost laughed at the scowl that crossed her face, an exact replica of the Shepard I knew now.

"C'mon, Shepard, give me a real smile. It's our first day and must be documented!" a happy voice commanded from off screen.

"Elise—until I walk in, and they officially swear me in—you do not get to call me Shepard," young Shepard grimaces, though her lips still break into a smile a moment later.

"Yes, yes, Evelyn, I'll stay away from the last name. Don't want to confuse you with your mummy," Elise jokes while Shepard's face scrunches up with another round of annoyance. I jolt, not only with the realization that the woman off-screen could only be Shepard's deceased fiance, but also with the revelation of Shepard's first name. A sudden warmth alights in my chest, and—even though I know it's a little ridiculous—I feel like I've been given a rare privilege, not only with the name, but with all that this video is.

The camera bounces around, and then another face enters the view, pushing her cheek right up against Shepard as she still holds the camera a distance away with her arm. Even with my limited knowledge of what humans call beautiful, I know this human is. Her hair is impossibly dark and drawn up into the same standard bun as the Shepard in the video, and the color contrasts against the pale smoothness of her skin. Elise's eyes are a warm amber gold that are alight with amusement when she presses her lips against Shepard's cheek in a stage kiss for the camera. Shepard laughs at her, and then grabs the front of Elise's shirt to pull her in for another kiss, laughing even more when Elise mock scolds her for wrinkling her uniform afterwards.

"We enlisted together," Shepard explained in a soft whisper, eyes never leaving the screen.

They look so happy that it hurts for me to keep watching, knowing what I do about what will happen next. The two smiles remain on screen for a few moments later, before Shepard is replacing it. The beginnings of videos flicker for seconds as Shepard continues clicking forward, years going by with each push of the button. She hesitates on some, and I see news clips of Hannah Shepard being honored with her daughter standing stiff behind her. When she finally stops, it's not on a home video but a news feed, and I'm wondering where she had gotten so many records of her past. Surely her data cloud would have been wiped once she'd been pronounced dead, but perhaps Cerberus had recovered it in the same way they'd recovered Shepard herself.

Shepard tensed as the new video blared bold headlines about the survivor of Akuze, flashing pictures of a grim 23 year old with blood and dirt smeared across her face as she's surrounded by a hoard of medics. There's a short interview at the end, with Shepard cleaned up and in a hospital bed, and I can see the difference immediately. It's like the light had gone out of her eyes as she tried to smile for the reporter, giving stilted answers about what it was like to fight through the thresher maws on foot. I can't help but shudder at how that empty Shepard is more familiar to me than the golden, happy Shepard in the first video.

Then Shepard is flicking through more videos, and these I recognize. Dozens of Alliance promotional videos flash by, white teeth and dark violet eyes all I can catch before they're gone. But I don't need to see them again. They had played all the time: different videos, but the all the same face of the now famous Shepard. The Alliance touted how she'd come from a long line of dedicated Alliance soldiers, reminded everyone of her ordeal on Akuze, spouted facts about the good that Alliance was doing for humanity, and finally finished with a charismatic Shepard saying, "Follow us into the future. Join the Alliance today." I'd always wondered how they'd managed to get Shepard to do the videos—probably some persuasion from her mother, I'd wager—when Shepard had always seemed to scowl whenever one played near her.

The last video Shepard played was from after the Battle of the Citadel. She didn't play the whole thing, just stopped it on a frame that shows her standing with the rest of the crew. I was there in the picture as well, at Shepard's right shoulder as she stands tall for the reporters. That had been a great day: all of us victorious. Shepard's face was determined, but there was also a hint of a smile that made me feel better after seeing what she looked like after Akuze. I just wished that small amount of warmth wasn't light years away from the emotion she'd shown with Elise.

The silence stretched on, and Shepard fidgeted next to me, tugging awkwardly on the ends of her auburn hair.

"Do you think I should change it back? Dye my hair back to blonde and chop it off again?" Shepard turned to ask me. It seems like a simple question, but I know it can't just be about a fashion choice. I struggle to find an appropriate answer.

"Well, do you want to change it back?" I asked.

Shepard frowned, fingers still twisting in the long waves that tumbled around her shoulders. Shepard had a scowl in place when she finally looked back up at me.

"She said I was being irrational. She called me a _mistake_," Shepard growled with venom, and it took me a moment to catch that we were now talking about Miranda.

"Well, maybe she's right." And Shepard's eyes burned, until I hastily corrected myself with, "about you being irrational, not that you're a mistake."

Shepard was quiet so I went on. "You're angry; I get that. A lot of shit has happened to you. But you're not even mad at the right person. It's like you think that being nice to Miranda will let Cerberus win. But no one is winning Shepard, not when this grudge is going to keep us from our mission, and it _will_," I emphasize, trying to be gentle but also wanting Shepard to take me seriously. "You told me that you don't know why you do this anymore. But it's never been about why; it's always about for whom. You're not fighting the Collectors for a bunch of faceless people. I didn't fight Saren and Sovereign for a bunch of faceless people. I fought for you, my sister, my father, and my friends. So put your anger on the real enemy, Shepard, and remember who you fight for, or we're never going to make it through this."

"I hate her, Garrus," Shepard said vehemently, and I bit back a dark laugh.

"No, you don't, Shepard. It's never been about Miranda," I assured her.

Shepard turned away so I couldn't see her face, and when the silence stretches on a little too long, I started getting up from the bed. I gathered our dishes and herded our mess onto the trays before pushing Shepard's table back in place. When I looked back, I saw Shepard had fallen back and already passed out on top of her covers, exhausted after our packed few days. I grabbed the extra throw from her couch and tossed it over her before gently sliding a pillow under her head and leaving the room. I left the dishes for Shepard to do later. She owed me.

* * *

**I finally updated! Yay! The goal was to finish this over my Christmas break, but, yeah, that didn't happen. Family and excessive amounts of sugar were my first priorities. **

**Anyway, what did everyone think? Did Miranda's interaction with Shepard in her cabin make you feel a little twisted up inside? Were you excited to actually *see* Elise, the fiance everyone keeps talking about? I'm aiming for the emotions here, people, so let me know how I'm doing!**

**As always, thank you to everyone who favorited, followed, or left me a review! Thank you to my guest reviewer from last chapter, since I couldn't leave you a message. Everything is appreciated. And, of course, hugs go out to my beta, Ablated Crayon, for bearing with me as I rewrote part of this chapter from scratch four times. I'm sure that drove you crazy. **

**Until next time!**


	12. Missing Zeros

Ch. 12: Missing Zeros

Miranda

I woke with a start, immediately groaning and rolling over to push my face back into the pillow. My dreams had been angry and dark with flashes of yelling, my father, and Shepard. Everywhere was Shepard. I turned again and stared out at the thousands of stars blurring across my window, trying to breathe normally as I reminded myself that everything was fine. _I'm in my bed. I'm on the Normandy. Everything is fine._ I blinked against the lights that were growing brighter in my cabin as the sensors picked up my movement. I almost commanded them off, but glowing orange numbers on my clock (I was already on a new one. I finally broke the last one with a well placed biotic shot the morning after we'd realized Shepard had gone off to Bekenstein on her own.) alerted me that the morning had already started.

The crew of the _Normandy _had fallen back into their routine with the return of the commander, and I could hear the sounds of people moving around in the kitchen. I glanced at the clock again; morning watch was just about ended, and the first of three shifts were about to head back to their stations. Each team, named Charon, Styx or Hydra, worked a four hour shift before being relieved by the next team and taking an eight hour break. Then there were two "dog shifts" (which I found to be amusing because...Cerberus) that were only two hours long in the evening to fit everything into twenty-four Earth-based hours.

The crew worked hard, but everyone seemed happy to be here, and I had heard no complaints, formal or otherwise. They were paid well and had whole days off when the Normandy was docked at a station or the ground team was on a mission. After several weeks working together, the crewman were all friendly with each other. I'd even heard some rumors of a weekly poker game that started up below decks—only friendly games without monetary compensation, of course. Even when the games did tend to involve money, well, Cerberus could afford to be more lenient on things like that. It was the worst kept secret on the ship, and everyone knew that I knew about it. I continued to let it slide; I could think of worse ways for the crew to entertain themselves. Besides, it was helping to bring everyone together, even better than Shepard's training sessions.

The sound of a crowd of crew members in the morning had now become comforting as I adjusted more and more to life on a ship. I had spent the first week on board cursing the thin bulkhead between my room and the noisy kitchen, but, now, among the clanging of pots and hiss of appliances, there was laughter and joking. It was...pleasant to hear, even if I wasn't really welcome to join.

Finally gathering the willpower to slip out from under my covers, I quickly padded over to my closet and grabbed clothing from the hangars. Today was going to be another travel day, so I passed over wearing my white one-piece for a looser, less battle-ready ensemble. The top was simple, white with a square neckline similar to my suit, and I paired it with snug black pants that I tucked into my usual boots. The pants bore a small Cerberus logo on the hip, but were otherwise unadorned. Catching my reflection in the mirror, I could admit that the full effect was downright casual compared to my usual. I tossed a smile at myself in the mirror, pleased with having a 'day off', even if I could never consider myself fully off-duty. Honestly, it would be a relief to finally have some real down time.

After pulling my hair back and pinning it into a low bun, I grabbed the novel, spine uncracked, from my table and tucked it against my side. I was hoping I might grab my breakfast quickly and eat while I read in the lounge. All in all, it sounded like a lovely way to spend my morning.

A few steps past my doorway and I was met a whole host of people gathered around the tables in the mess hall. A glance back at my clock told me that I had indeed decided to exit right before the shift change, meaning much of the crew was squeezing in breakfast before relieving their morning watch counterparts. So tied up in my thoughts, I had mistimed my exit: a rookie mistake. While I might have found the sound of the crew comforting, I had always planned my breakfast just before or just after the main horde moved through. I couldn't turn back in; several people had already seen me in my doorway.

My eyes roamed over the bodies in attendance, and I stiffened when I recognized Shepard's distinctive hair at one of the tables. Only last night I had yelled at her, called her a mistake. Shame rolled through me in waves as I looked at her, an emotion I'd honestly forgotten I could feel. I hadn't really meant my words, but I was so incredibly frustrated with her attitude. She'd made me feel foolish, a sentiment that was also rarely forced upon me.

I made my way over to the line that was formed in front of the food, thanking whatever powers that be that Shepard was seated with her back to me. I straightened my own back and set my face as I approached the other crew members, prepared for the silence that would accompany their noticing me. They would awkwardly still when they saw me, move away to let me pass. They always shuffled back to put me first, warily respectful but twinged with dislike. I was used to it. Mostly.

The reaction I received instead was certainly unexpected. Crewman Hawthorne caught my eye and actually _smiled_, waving for me to take the place in front of him in line. I stopped myself from actually stumbling in my confusion, but walked carefully up to him with suspicion.

"Thank you, Operative Lawson," Hawthorne said enthusiastically. I eyed him guardedly now, looking for some sort of trick. Sure, most of the crew had a lot to thank me for. I took care of most of the logistics to run the Normandy from day to day and even handled smaller issues that weren't strictly part of my job, but that didn't mean that they noticed. They surely didn't find it necessary to _thank_ me for it.

"I honestly have no idea what you're thanking me for, Crewman," I answered, stiff and uncomfortable.

"The improved rations you picked up on the Citadel have worked _wonders_," he explained. "Rupert used the past two days to finish off the old supplies and just pulled out the new stuff today as a surprise."

I settled my face into my business smile before replying, "Of course, Crewman Hawthorne. I do my best to keep up morale."

He turned his face away, but it looked suspiciously like Hawthorne rolled his eyes at my reply. But then it was gone, and he was looking at me just as genuinely as before.

"Yeah, all of us assumed it was Shepard that arranged it, but she told us that it was actually you. Just thought I'd let you know how much we all appreciate it," Hawthorne said.

I spun in surprise to look at Shepard, but her back was still steadfastly facing me, even though I had the sneaking suspicion that she was listening to every word.

"I don't even think there will be leftovers," Hawthorne said happily, motioning me forward again. "Get it while it's good."

I nodded to him, trying a small smile on for size before deciding it was disagreeable. It was somewhat nice to see most of the crew looking at me like they weren't terrified of me, but mostly just disorienting. That would go away soon at least. A healthy dose of fear was good; it wouldn't do for the crew to view me as anything more than mildly amicable.

I had a small serving of cereal and a muffin balanced on my tray, and I turned to grab a drink when a synchronized beep sounded on every omni-tool in the room: shift change. I heard Hawthorne groan behind me and start stuffing food in his mouth before depositing his tray in the proper place and moving with the others on Team Charon to the elevator. There would be a minor rush around the elevator as Team Styx left morning watch and flooded out onto the third deck, but those crewman typically headed straight for their bunks or the empty crew lounge and ate later.

Another blip sounded from my omni, and the daily budget report flashed for my attention. I reached to dismiss it, tray balanced precariously since I didn't have enough hands, when a row of numbers caught my attention. The omni-tool didn't show the whole message, just a small cut-off window, but the summary in the top right was wrong. It had to be.

My stomach twisted as I set my tray back down on the kitchen serving counter, motioning for the whole message to come up on the display. The top right presented the total for the mission's monetary accounts. It was missing a zero. It was missing quite a few zeroes. I had to lean against the counter for a moment, my mind racing.

I had managed our money meticulously, even budgeting the extra expense for the new food. There was absolutely no reason why our accounts would drop so dramatically. Then I hit the scroll and saw the name that was printed next to the last ten transactions: Shepard, Com.

"Don't race out of the room on my account," Shepard muttered, annoyed, from where she still sat at the table.

Dots blinked across my vision as I tried to breathe and not explode in my anger. The argument from last night still wasn't blown over, and this certainly would make things worse. _But, bloody hell, if I'd known this last night_, I let an enraged shudder ripple its way down my back, _I definitely would have yelled louder. Much louder. _

I looked more closely at the expenses. Sure there were some I could justify—gun mods and new armor pieces—but what the hell kind of upgrade was so important it was worth 75,000 credits?

What was worse was the incoming message that blinked into existence right below the budget report.

**Miranda**,

**It would seem your operation is low on funds. I'm willing to authorize a supplemental transfer under one condition: a mission to Lorek. One of our operatives is missing, captured by Eclipse mercenaries. It's unclear what Eclipse has planned, but the data Operative Rawlings possesses is sensitive. It's imperative that it be recovered. I've sent a copy of all the details to Shepard. No doubt she will ignore it. If the **_**Normandy**_ **takes care of it, you'll have the money. **

**TIM**

This was the first time I'd _ever_ been sent a message like this from The Illusive Man. I felt like a child being chastised by a parent, and heaven knows I'd had enough parental oversight to last a lifetime. I could feel my jaw twitching as I glared at the back of Shepard's head. _Childish, inconsiderate, irresponsible_. This was a privately funded operation, not the Alliance, and _for God's sake I'm taking her credit chit away_. It wasn't as if Cerberus had an infinite amount of money; certainly Shepard remembered the fortune we'd spent _bringing her back to life_. I mean, I suppose Cerberus wasn't exactly going to run out soon either, but Shepard _knows how to manage money, and I swear..._

The tirade continued silently in my head for a few moments more, and then I just deflated, throwing an exasperated glance up at the Normandy's ceiling like there was something out there that could help me. _So much for a lovely morning off._

"Shepard, we have a problem," I began, settling on the bench across the table from her.

"Back for another round?" Shepard scowled, though even she must have realized how childish it sounded because she sat up straighter and met my eyes.

"I suppose that depends largely on you," I intimated, picking gingerly at the muffin I had yet to eat. My cereal was probably soggy by now as well.

Shepard sighed, rolling her neck out before grudgingly giving me her full attention. "Spit it out, Lawson."

"We have a mission we need to take care of before we fly to recruit Dr. Okeer," I stated, pressing my lips together in an attempt to hold back the slurry of my more impassioned opinions.

"Yeah I saw that in my mail. But I don't work for Cerberus," Shepard retorted. It was her usual fallback, but this time it had a weakness.

"You _do_ when you spend all our money," I corrected, my voice coming out cold and hard. Shepard sat back in surprise.

"Surely we can't be that low?" Shepard asked, her eyes growing worried, and the anger in my chest melted slightly, _very_ slightly.

"We don't even have enough to buy the small amount of fuel necessary to get us from the mass relay to Okeer's location. And the planet is even in the same system," I informed her, finally taking a few bites of my breakfast in the silence that followed. I flushed when I realized Shepard was watching my movements with fascination, but then she realized as well and turned away until her face fell stoic once more. The silence stretched on as she seemed to think while pushing around the remaining scraps of her breakfast.

"Not much of a choice then," Shepard reached a decision, and irritation rasped against my chest again. She'd had plenty of choices when she'd spent our money in the first place. "How do we get to Lorek then?"

"The travel cost will be included in the payment we'll receive after the mission is completed. I'll have to ask the cost be advanced," I admitted, my annoyance seeping through, and Shepard glowered back at me.

"Alright," Shepard agreed, looking done with the conversation. Or maybe finished with my presence. "Is that all?"

I stood, ready to toss my barely eaten breakfast in the trash, when I saw something that gave me pause. There was a cuff wrapped around her upper forearm that I had never seen before. It looked impossibly thin, almost like it was part of her skin, and an intricate geometric pattern danced across its length. The thin cords it was composed of looked slightly metallic, and they ranged in colors from gold to white as they wove in and out of the complicated plait.

I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me, "What is that?" at the same time Shepard abashedly turned and said, "I need a favor."

We both stared at each other a moment before I broke in, "You first."

I had meant for her to tell me her favor first, but instead she said, "They call them nara. It's an asari thing; Liara taught me how to make it. Each color represents a person, and you pick the color based on what that person means to you."

I expected her to stop her explanation there; it seemed like such a personal topic. I was surprised when, almost with a hint of excitement, she continued, "A component in the cords is element zero—just a small amount—which is why they look iridescent. I started it two years ago, but it's always possible to add onto it. See," she brought her arm closer for inspection, and I held my breath, waiting for her to realize what she was doing, who she was revealing this to, "The white is Chakwas. I added Garrus in as royal purple, and Anderson is the emerald green.

"The gold is Elise," Shepard's voice hesitated on the name, like she was reluctant to even say it aloud to me, but then her eyes lit up in a way that made my chest ache when, with obvious adoration, she said, "and the cerulean is…"

"Liara," I guessed, cutting in.

She nodded, her eyes snapping to mine. I'm not sure what she saw there but it had her pulling her arm back to her side. I thought I could reasonably guess what the colors might mean—or, at least, I'd know for sure when I researched it later—but I found myself wanting to hear more. There were still more colors woven in: a zigzag of bright red dancing with a wave of yellow, an earthy brown, sunset orange. But Shepard already had a hand covering it protectively, and the moment was over. _I wonder what color I'd be_, traitorous thought that it was, flashed through my head.

"Where did you get it? It wasn't something I tracked down for your cabin," I asked, and the joy faded so quickly from her eyes I wondered if I'd ever seen it at all.

"Anderson had it for me, along with my old N7 jacket," Shepard admitted. Her tone told me everything, and I knew, just _knew_, that Shepard was thinking the same thing: Liara must have been on the Citadel recently. It was the puzzle piece that told Shepard Liara had been there, had known she was alive, and hadn't _stayed, _hadn't _waited._ And as much as the selfish part of me secretly rejoiced, the rest of me hurt with sympathy at Shepard's unmistakeable pain.

"You had a favor to ask?" I quickly switched topics out of the dangerous territory.

Shepard snapped to and nodded. I fought a smile at the obvious relief that spilled over her face.

"One of the upgrades I bought isn't exactly a self-installing kind of thing."

And with that, my body tensed with dread and worry. No doubt this was what Shepard spent 75,000 credits on. _So help me if it's a worthless piece of junk…_

"It's a skeletal lattice medical upgrade, so I was thinking you could help me with it since you're my builder person," and I couldn't help but mouth the words 'builder person' again with amazement before Shepard continued, "the instructions say it's about a two day recovery, so after Lorek, you could install it and I'd have plenty of time to heal before we go get Okeer."

"Install?" I repeated incredulously. Honestly, _install_ a medical upgrade like her body was some kind of mec. "What part of the name 'skeletal lattice' made you think you could implant it yourself?" I asked instead.

Shepard just shrugged. "Shouldn't be too difficult for _you_, Lawson," Shepard said almost sarcastically, but she also followed with a hesitant, "that is, if it doesn't make you uncomfortable or something."

"That's not exactly a favor; it's part of my job. Plus," I smirked, "it isn't anything I haven't seen before."

And I meant that it wasn't a complicated medical implant, that working on Shepard wasn't something that was new, but then Shepard actually flushed and I found myself biting my lip.

Recovering quickly, I finally took a step away to make my exit.

"I'll inform Joker we're making a fuel stop and then changing course to Lorek," I relayed, breathing easier with the extra foot of space. Everything around Shepard was a heady cloud of intoxication that seemed to pull me in even when only 12 hours ago I was screaming in her face.

"The money?" Shepard queried, and _there_, there was the flash of guilt, though it shouldn't have made me feel so smug.

"I'll take care of it," I assured her.

"No doubt," Shepard said, and if the response was only a shard of confidence in me surrounded by walls of bitterness and sarcasm, I pretended not to notice. Or maybe I was just surprised there was that note of confidence at all.

Miranda

The shuttle landed with a thump on the abandoned landing pad. A cursory glance told me there were no enemies here, but I released my gun from its holster before hitting the shuttle door control. A hop down from the vehicle and still no gunfire. It was...suspicious.

"No greeting party?" Garrus joked, looking around with exaggerated movements. "Now I'm just offended. It's like they didn't even remember we were coming to visit."

I rolled my eyes and looked to Shepard, whose eyes were just as wary as they drug over cargo boxes and anything that could be use for cover, by either side. The commander gripped her shotgun firmly before giving the wave to move out. Her ground team fell in, consisting of just myself and Garrus this time. Due to the sensitive nature of the mission and the tight quarters we were expecting, Shepard had agreed that a small group would be best.

We moved through the front door, which was unsurprisingly unlocked. If the mercs were trying to draw us in, they were hardly subtle. If we weren't hoping to recover both Rawlings and the data intact, I would have suggested just destroying the whole facility with the _Normandy_. Alas, things, of course, would never be that easy.

When we reached the interior door, everyone paused to listen. I could just barely make out the sounds of movement on the other side, and the three of us raised our guns in tandem.

"Alright, everyone, gird your loins," Garrus warned seriously. Shepard made a face and punched him in the armored arm, probably hurting her hand more than it hurt him.

"Gird my what now? The hell did that come from Garrus?" Shepard whispered heatedly.

"Hey! Turians can consume human media too. I'll have you know that is a very popular human phrase," Garrus whispered back.

"From what? A hundred years ago?" Shepard retorted, letting a hand off her shotgun to wave it in disbelief. Garrus' face fell, looking momentarily stumped.

"Maybe. What of it? Turian history goes back 15,000 years; One hundred years ago is like yesterday. It's not my fault human history is so short," he argued, his nose wrinkling.

Shepard's eyes widened and then she was waving a finger in Garrus' face.

"You watched 'The Devil Wears Prada', didn't you? Didn't you?" Shepard accused, and Garrus' mouth shut guiltily.

"You two, this is hardly the time," I intervened. Shepard's mouth fell open again, and she started waving vaguely in my direction, speechless.

"You...you've been making 'Miranda' comments for days, and I've been so confused!" Shepard exclaimed, now even less quiet. For heaven's sake, the mercs would definitely know where we were now. "You just wouldn't _shut up_ on the comms during Hock's party. I thought you were losing it."

"I might've watched it once...or twice. It was on a list naming the best movies to watch to understand human culture," Garrus admitted sheepishly. "The quotes seemed to...fit."

Shepard began waving at me again excitedly. "Miranda Priestly, and her name's Miranda! You are brilliant, my turian friend!" Shepard exclaimed before rounding on me. "Say 'that's all.'"

"What? I have no idea what you're talking about," I said confused. Apparently there was a movie with someone named Miranda? I had no idea how else that was supposed to apply to me.

Shepard's mouth twisted in disappointment, and she gripped her gun again. Still, she grinned at Garrus before saying, in a falsely low voice, "Details of your incompetence do not interest me."

The turian snickered, and I stared at the both of them.

"Although, Garrus, I should probably warn you that, while a classic, that movie is not a great indicator of human culture," Shepard continued, still amused. "You should really be less trusting of everything on the extranet."

Garrus just shrugged with roll of his eyes, and I remained completely lost. I'd have to watch this movie so I could figure out what they were talking about. Shepard, however, didn't give me more time to think on it, stepping up to the door control finally.

"Now that the enemy knows exactly where we are…," I muttered as Shepard moved to open the door.

Shepard turned, quirking an eyebrow. "Were we ever under the impression that this was something other than a trap? They knew where we were anyway," Shepard pointed out, and I sighed in acquiescence. Turning from me, Shepard hoisted her shotgun into position and hovered her hand over the control. "Alright, eyes sharp and be ready for bullets the minute this door opens. I'll give us an initial barrier, open this door, and then we move for cover immediately. Ready?"

Garrus and I both nodded at Shepard and her red striped arm rose towards the controls. Her fingers snapped across the green lit button, and then we were rushing forward, bullets immediately exploding yellow against the swirling blue of Shepard's barrier. There were several mercs straight ahead of us, crouched behind crates, so I threw out an area warp, satisfied when it ate through their shields and left them breathless with the impact. The three of us moved forward as a unit. The biotic barriers were holding against the onslaught aimed at us from the upper level, but not for much longer. We made to move for the lower level cover that the first group of mercs were still behind, but before we even made to shoot at them, they were retreating back and towards the upper level stairs to join their comrades. My stomach gave that twist that told me something was wrong; they had given up position too easily.

Shepard saw it at the same time I did and was already shoving Garrus and me ahead of her in a mad dash to avoid the explosion that erupted out of the crates. I felt searing heat scorching across my back, my neck, and my thighs, and then suddenly I was flying face forward into the nearby wall.

I must only have been knocked out for a few seconds, but when I came to, Shepard had already managed to drag me a few feet where we hid behind a few tables she had pulled over onto their sides. She and Garrus were alternating popping out of cover, keeping the enemies from converging on us while we regained our wits. My ears were ringing, and my head screamed like my brain had just been put through a blender. My chest pinched uncomfortably as I reached a hand and prodded gently at a gash on my forehead that ran the side of my face back into my hairline. My fingers came away with a lot of blood, but nothing felt overly painful. It seemed like my barriers were able to hold out against the brunt of the explosion and consequential encounter with the wall, but the indicator on my omni-tool showed my kinetic barriers hadn't recharged. My biotics were drained as well. I swore internally.

I tried to turn over so I could push to my knees, but let out a gasp when I tried to move my left leg. I could barely get it to react, but even the smallest movement shot pain rippling through my muscles until I was biting back a scream. A slowly increasing pool of blood was now visible underneath me, and I cursed lowly.

Shepard shifted to look back at me, and her eyes widened before motioning to Garrus to keep us covered. None too gently, she positioned me on my side to get a look at the back of my leg, muttering along the way something about 'real goddamn armor.' I was inclined to agree with her. Usually, the benefits of having free movement outweighed the heavier weight but superior protection of full armor, but today a few more layers between myself and that blast could have come in handy.

"Hamstringed," Shepard said gruffly, using a hand to put pressure on my wound while she fumbled at a pouch for an application of medi-gel. And if I thought that the pain was bad before, it was nothing compared to how it felt when Shepard's palm pushed down _hard_. "One of the crate shards must have sliced through in the explosion. Must not have cut through everything back there if you can still move it, but I'm not sure you're going to be able to stand."

I nodded at her with clenched teeth, and Shepard's fingers finally found the medi-gel I needed. She ripped into the top of the pouch with her teeth before pouring the translucent goo into the laceration on the back of my thigh. The breath I'd been holding broke forward in a sigh of relief as the gel molded where it was needed and quickly hardened. The area numbed slightly as well, enough to keep the pain from being distracting, and Shepard prodded at the covering a few times to make sure everything was holding.

"All good," Shepard assented, before lending a hand to get me onto my good knee.

A quick assessment of our position showed us backed into a poorly covered corner, with at least five enemies in an advantageous spot above us on the second level. _This is just bloody spectacular._

"What was that about a trap?" I asked, and Shepard grunted out a laugh.

The mercs were frustratingly covered by a wall and at an awkward angle for us to shoot at, but they were having a field day with us. A smear of red at Shepard's shoulder showed where a bullet had made its way through her barriers and sunk into the flesh there. I saw the shiny top of the medi-gel that her suit had automatically dispensed to the area, but the the movement of her arm was noticeably slower. Garrus seemed to have escaped anything major, only shaking his head every few seconds, likely trying to clear residual ringing from the blast.

I realized I was only going to be a help to this fight at range; it was very unlikely I'd be moving from this spot. I spied a merc getting careless and leaving the top of his head exposed over the side of the wall and caught Garrus' eye, to which he gave a nod and reached for his sniper rifle. Once his gun was fully extended, I hit the wall with an overload. It managed to catch the top of the one merc's head, and he jerked up as the electricity traveled to his muscles. His head was gone a second later with the twitch of Garrus' finger against his trigger.

Blood sprayed out and coated the visor of a vanguard next to him, and she went stumbling to the side, wiping frantically to clear her vision. The moment she moved from her cover I sank a bullet in her shoulder, giving Garrus enough space to launch a shot into her skull as well.

We got lucky with those two mercs down, but the remaining three were more fortified than before, having edged to where the wall around the level made a corner and protected them from two sides. One of the merc's arms reared back, and then Shepard and Garrus were both grabbing my arms, pulling me with them as we escaped a grenade that arched across the room and stuck to the floor next to our table.

"Who the fuck uses this many explosives in a place as small as this?" Shepard swore angrily. "This whole thing could come down on top of us. It's not exactly sturdy construction!"

"You know we'd be using them if we had them. Too bad you decided against bringing the rocket launcher, eh Shepard?" Garrus wheezed out a joke through the smoke filling the room from the latest explosive.

Shepard ignored him as she yelled out her plan, "Alright, my singularity isn't the best, but I think I can get it to pull at least one of them up from behind that wall. Think you two can be fast enough when it does?"

"Looks like it's the only thing we can do," I agreed after eyeing the scene. "We can't possibly get close enough for anything else." Shepard made a noise like annoyance my input, but didn't otherwise respond.

A pointed look asked Garrus and me whether we were ready, then a sound like a slap pealed through the room as a singularity was forced into existence. One unlucky merc was nabbed by the leg, and she was hauled up with a shout. Garrus let off a clean shot that pierced through her helmet after my overload handled her shields, and then her body floated limply with the quickly fading singularity. A percentage of my biotics were now back, so I took aim and threw a warp with my remaining strength at Shepard's flickering singularity. The biotics exploded out violently on contact, blasting the two remaining mercs against the wall they were behind.

Shepard took off. Storming up the stairs, she took advantage of the disorientation of the blast to get in close, Garrus hot on her heels to give her backup. Once Shepard was close, it was all over. Her charge snapped one merc's neck immediately, and the other followed quickly after when Shepard shoved the nozzle of her shotgun right underneath the woman's helmet. When the trigger pulled, the mercenary's neck disappeared completely in a splattering mess, and both body and severed head thudded to the ground.

Garrus grimaced in disgust. "Must you?"

Shepard just shrugged, unconcerned, and turned her back to trot over to where I was still kneeling awkwardly behind a crate. I managed to push myself up cautiously, leaning heavily on the crate, and swept my eyes along our trail of carnage. Biotics scorched against every surface, providing the backdrop for the smears of red that trickled down the crates. The multiple explosives had left a thin layer of black on most of the room as well. It was actually gruesome how much gore the three of us were able to create together. My eyes followed Shepard's path up the stairs and onto the upper deck where the remaining bodies were strewn, and I frowned at the pulp that used to be a body before it met a shotgun. _That really is repugnant. I'll take pistols any day_, I thought to myself.

Shepard arrived next to me, having pulled off her helmet to try and wipe the blood clouding the visor, and offered her arm. Proudly, I scoffed at her and tried putting weight on my bad leg to walk on my own.

I ended up making a fool of myself when my leg gave out with pain, and I stumbled forward into her arms. An overwhelming feeling of _closeness_ followed. I spent so much time being surrounded by people on the Normandy, yet actually so removed that feeling Shepard's armor digging into my sternum was like shock that traveled all the way up to my throat and made it hard to breathe. First, the crew smiling at me this morning and then _this_. I didn't even know what to do with _this._

Shepard's fingers were cutting into my arms from where she caught me to hold me up, and I was pressed so close to her that I could feel her chin brush the top of my head when she turned to try and pull me fully onto my feet. I was still leaning on her when I lifted my chin and her face was right _there_ above mine. She was watching me with those dark, emerald eyes, and it was like I could physically see the battle waged behind them. It was look I'd become used to over the past month, the one where she asked herself: friend or foe?

I wanted to reassure her, to tell her that I was, of course, on her side. But was I really? I already held secrets from her. If the Illusive Man ordered me to act against her, I think I would do it. But even the fact that I wasn't absolutely sure scared me. A month ago, no matter that I had spent two years building Shepard, if the Illusive Man had ordered me to dispose of Shepard, I would have—without thinking, without blinking.

I jerked my face away from Shepard in a movement that made her flinch, and she quickly rearranged us so that she had an arm supporting under my shoulders. Her usual scowl was back on her face by the time she had maneuvered me up the stairs, but she helped me get into position behind the wall with an uncharacteristic gentleness that had me staring up at her in confusion.

Shepard didn't notice. She was already posted up into front of the computer, scanning through the files to find our man, Rawlings. Garrus crouched down next to me, balancing his rifle on the top of the wall as we both watched warily for any more enemies.

"Alright," Shepard hummed. "Looks like Rawlings was protecting the fact that Cerberus was performing experiments on the Rachni. Well, shit, I could have told them that. I killed enough of those buggers running clean up for multiple Cerberus facilities." She eyed me with a smirk. _If she's waiting for me to thank her on Cerberus' behalf, she has another thing coming._

"Also looks like he didn't crack," Shepard continued. "And they weren't able to decrypt the data on their own. Which, by the way, is not on this server; I can't get anything from here. My guess is we find Rawlings—or, you know, what's left of him—and we'll find that data too."

Shepard looked like she meant to continue talking, but I interrupted with a shout to warn her of new enemies pouring out of the opposite door. She dropped quickly, but still caught the glancing blow of a biotic shockwave on her shoulder. Shepard crunched onto the ground a ways from me, out of breath and hissing at the pain. Her helmet was gone, stupidly removed at the end of the last wave, and I could see it from where it sat just down the steps, the dark, reflective visor facing us. Shepard's hair stuck wetly to her forehead in its absence, already pulling out from the hair tie.

I saw the mercs disappearing through a door, and realization caused me to turn in panic towards the door on our platform. I tried to yell the warning at Shepard, but, either because she was still dizzy from the shockwave or because it was too loud with the gunfire, she wasn't responding. Snapping to a decision, I held two fingers at my ear and connected over to Garrus, whose helmet was still in its proper place on his head.

"Garrus, I need that door shut quickly. Incoming down the hallway. Try overloading the circuits to make sure they can't get through it. Then post up in that corner over there and force their heads down with that rifle of yours," I ordered. Garrus eyed me for a moment, before nodding hastily and running in a crouch towards the door. I watched him until he sank quickly at the base of the door before setting to work on the illuminated controls.

Shepard was finally bouncing back, catching her breath enough to reinforce her own biotics and disperse the residual effects of the shockwave. She roughly slid into the half wall next to me, and she was very obviously favoring her left shoulder. _Oh, _I realized, _that shockwave hit the shoulder that was already wounded. _I grimaced in sympathy, noting, at least, that the medi-gel was holding, and Shepard hadn't begun to bleed again.

Without Shepard's helmet, I was now privy to all the Commander's little noises that were usually blocked by a layer of ablative ceramic during battle. It seemed obscenely intimate, the way I could hear her breath coming out in harsh bursts around the pained twist of her mouth, when before I had been faced with a smooth expanse of black. Her eyes screamed at me now, shouting all the emotions of battle that had previously been shadowed by the tint of her visor.

I looked away. Garrus had done as I'd ordered and positioned himself in the corner to keep our enemy from advancing on us. But neither his gun nor mine would be useful against the contents of the distinctive little box the mercs opened.

"Shepard, give us a barrier. Make it a small dome around us three. I'll throw a straight barrier out a ways, but I don't think I'll hold past the first few hits. My biotics are too tired," I directed, motioning for Garrus to shuffle in closer.

Shepard's cheek gave an angry tick, but there was no time to argue, not when I'd given the right order. A shimmer of blue wobbled into existence a few feet from us, leaving a farewell present in the form of blossoming pain behind my eyes. I quickly wiped at the trickle of blood seeping from my nose, but I felt Shepard's eyes on me before I could get rid of the evidence. One, two, three grenades exploded against my barrier before it flickered out, and then Shepard molded her own biotics around us as another lobby of grenades flew towards us.

"Maybe your biotics wouldn't be so drained if you hadn't tried to put your barrier around all three of us for that first bomb. We were too spaced out; I'm not sure how you held it," Shepard scolded, grudgingly approving while disapproving at the same time. We both flinched as another cluster of grenades violently detonated against the barrier, but it held.

I looked at her in surprise; I hardly remembered pushing my barrier out beyond myself. _Did I really throw out a barrier around all of us? _It didn't really sound like me, but, then again, much had changed in the space of a month.

Finally, our enemy threw out an array of grenades in a last ditch effort to break through, but Shepard held, throwing up yet another barrier, even when her face went pink from the effort. Soon she was pulling her rifle from her back, and _goodness_ _how does someone make sweaty and blood-splattered look attractive? _I shook myself quickly into focus and joined Shepard in a quick pop above cover to scan the situation.

It was clear that the enemy had been trying to regain control of the situation, but, without the element of surprise and their supply of grenades seemingly exhausted, it was too late. The three of us were in superior position this time, and, thankfully, the battle was a far cry from the foxhole we'd previously been in. We were able to keep adequately covered behind the wall, but the enemy had good cover, too, resulting in a stalemate as both sides took shots from behind walls and thick pillars. To top it off, an engineer was holed up nicely in a corner, jumpstarting the shield regeneration of his nearby comrades with a modified overload function and sending a drone out regularly to attack for him. Shepard was soon growling in frustration.

The enemy still managed to have numbers on us, until they tried sending a few men down the lower level to get at us. Garrus and I occupied the mercs up top, while Shepard took care of those unfortunate souls once they got close enough, but then we were right back where we were before: an impasse.

That was when I saw the still half full box of grenades that had been shoved underneath the computer desk by its previous residents. I pointed it out to Shepard, and she responded with a wicked grin.

"And just what are you smiling about, Shepard?" Garrus called out, ducking down after a shot. "I thought you didn't want to do this anymore."

"I meant I was tired of being a hero, you ass!" she yelled back. Her face was smudged now with red, making a gorey type of battle paint across her face, but when she smiled it was like she was on stage for an award, blinding and brilliant and gorgeous. "Doesn't mean I don't still love a good fight."

Then she was shoving two grenades at Garrus because he was our best aim. Pins clicked out, and then they were soaring across the room, bouncing against the back wall to explode a magnificent ten foot radius along with several mercenaries that hadn't seen the danger in time.

We focused on what was now our last enemy, the salarian engineer whose combat drone had already managed to shock me. He was several meters away from me, and, still frustratingly hidden. Garrus remained on the platform with the computer we had accessed, and Shepard took a bullet against her barrier as she wedged herself back up next to me.

"What's it look like?"

"He's just behind that pillar, successfully out of both my and Garrus' line of sight. Keeps sending that drone out, but it goes down easily with one overload," I muttered, annoyed.

"Revenge. I like it. Serves the thing right for shocking me in the ass earlier. It's still tingling," Shepard replied. She laughed and smiled over at me, though it twisted and fell when she realized. She hurriedly turned forward again.

"Okay, give me some covering fire. Keep him behind that pillar. I'll get it from there," Shepard ordered, running in a crouch towards the stairs. Garrus and I both took useless shots at the cement support, but it forced the salarian to stay put. The drone appeared regularly, but I took it down before it could get close to Shepard as she snuck as close to the enemy as she could.

When she was in position, I motioned for Garrus to move up behind her, ready to come to her aid if it was needed. Shepard's biotics flared, and then she was a blur moving forward. The salarian grunted as she bowled him over and into a wall, ending with an arm at his neck that she pressed and pressed and pressed until the salarian slumped over. She let him drop with a heavy crunch.

Shepard stared at the body for a moment longer, and, without a word, she and Garrus turned back to me. They each gave me a shoulder for support, and we walked for the last door in the facility. Rawlings had to be through there.

Shepard hit the switch and the door reluctantly creaked open to reveal a room covered in gore. There was a body to the side that could only be Rawlings, and his blood was spattered across the wall where it wasn't dripping down the chair holding him. My stomach churned, but I swallowed hard to keep it under control. I tried to take a steadying breath, but that was a bad idea. Rawlings had been here long enough for there to be a smell. I attempted to cough out my discomfort as subtly as I could, and, luckily, neither of my teammates said anything. Honestly, Garrus wasn't looking too peachy either, his eyes darting quickly away from the mess everytime they accidentally landed on Rawlings' body.

Shepard was as steady as ever, walking briskly up to the computer while ignoring everything else. Fingers flew across the hepatic keyboard until she paused and read intently. Briefly, she looked over her shoulder at me with a look I couldn't decipher before continuing with the computer.

With a sigh, Shepard turned to face me and Garrus.

"The data is here," Shepard said bluntly.

"That was the point wasn't it? We'll take it back to the Normandy and send it on to Cerberus," I said, wondering why she seemed so hesitant. This was a job, and we needed the money.

"You don't want to give it to Cerberus," Garrus intoned quietly, reading her correctly and avoiding my glance.

"This is probably the only proof there is that Cerberus experimented with the Rachni. There might be something on their experiments with husks, too. I found both creatures in one facility two years ago, a facility where those experiments cost the lives of too many people. If I send it back, Cerberus will either bury it or destroy it," Shepard explained, agitatedly pacing back and forth in front of the computer.

I remained quiet. I could...reluctantly understand her point of view. The cells operating those experiments had been careless, and it had cost the lives of several Cerberus members. It wasn't a section of Cerberus I was particularly proud of.

On the other hand, the Illusive Man promised the addition funding in return for the acquisition of Rawlings' data.

"Seriously, Lawson? We've spent weeks arguing about Cerberus, and now you decide you don't have an opinion?" Shepard demanded, drawing me out of my thoughts.

"Did you have some other plan for the data? We need the money," I reminded her. Shepard's eyebrows drew down, and she kept pacing with a dramatic sigh.

"I could send it to the Alliance," Shepard said grimly. "Cerberus should be held accountable for what they've done."

"The Alliance isn't exactly the galaxy's judge and jury. If you want them to be held accountable, send it to the Council. But I think you and I both know what will happen with it: nothing," Garrus pointed out. "No one exactly needs a reminder of how horrible Cerberus is. If anything, sending this might just make you look worse for working with them right now."

"We could…"

Shepard interrupted me before I could finish my thought. "Yes, yes, Lawson. I get it. We'll send the data along for the money. I suppose morals don't matter when the galaxy is at stake," she mused bitterly.

"No, I was thinking we just take the data onto the _Normandy_," I corrected her. Shepard looked at me in exasperation, and I elaborated, "_Only_ to the _Normandy_. She's technically a Cerberus vessel, so we technically turned the data in. I'll send a report saying we decided to give the data to EDI to decrypt. She's likely better than the Cerberus cyber division anyway."

"The Illusive Man still has direct access to the _Normandy_'s systems though," Shepard noted. "If he wanted to delete it, he still could."

"So EDI makes a copy," I explained. "EDI is an AI; I'm sure she has places to hide a file that would take a human forever to find."

"And if I don't trust EDI to actually hide it? She is shackled with Cerberus protocols, after all," Shepard pointed out.

I frowned before settling on a shrug. "It's not a perfect plan, but it gives you a better shot than handing it over directly."

Shepard looked at me with the barest flicker of a smile.

"Good. Excellent thought, Lawson. We'll do that," Shepard decided.

"Of course, Shepard," I said wryly. She rolled her eyes at me. But she also wrapped a careful arm around my waist and helped me back to the ship.

* * *

**Aaaand that's a wrap! Sorry for the longer wait, but I did make the chapter longer! I know there isn't a Garrus section in this one, but this is just the way the story was going. He'll have his time next chapter! How is Miranda doing in this story? Do you think I've captured her well enough from the game? She's the one I fret most about, so I'd love to hear your opinions!**

**Of course, thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed, followed or fav'd. It makes my day! Thank you to my guest reviewer that I couldn't respond directly to, and special thanks to snusnu13, whose encouragement really pushed me through this chapter. **


	13. One Bad Call

Ch. 13: One Bad Call

Joker

I knew she would make her way up to see me eventually. When things went to shit, it was like she couldn't help herself: she had to spread it around. Shepard would go to Garrus first, especially if she needed a drink. She'd try Chakwas if she was looking for unconditional acceptance. Finally, she'd come to me. Shepard and I, well, we'd both had a lot of practice in what to say on days like this, even if it was just to say nothing at all. Not to mention, her first two options weren't really available at the moment. Understatement of the year, actually.

Shepard's theme of the night seemed to be a lot of ranting, punctuated by gaps of awkward, tense silence. She agitatedly paced the cockpit, tight movements in a figure eight around the chairs, spouting seething comments and general noises of frustration. Her eyes were still all wide and crazy from her dash onto the ship, and her hair still matted against the side of her head from her helmet. Some of the clips on her armor were loose from where she started to take it off but had gotten sidetracked by something else instead.

Shepard alighted on the edge of the co-pilot chair but launched out of it again within seconds to resume pacing. Of course, by then Shepard had already managed to get a blood stain on the chair. Well that's just great. Thanks for that, Shepard, I cringed internally.

"It was just one bad call," I tentatively tried to console. A scowl formed on her face so quickly, it was like I'd physically hit her.

"And you'd know all about bad calls, wouldn't you?" Shepard snarled as her neck snapped around towards me.

All the breath went out of my lungs. Of course, of course, it would always go back to That Day with us now. I thought I could get away from it, those two years of guilt and suffering. I thought she'd forgiven me that first day when she'd hugged me and been so relieved that "at least she had managed to save me." But, no, somewhere in that first week on the Normandy, she must have looked at the Cerberus logos surrounding her and her new, scar-free arms and realized what had happened. She realized who to blame, the same person I'd been blaming for the past two years: me.

Shepard was right to blame me. I was the reason she died. I just had to stay with the ship; I made the wrong decision, and Shepard paid for it. Those thoughts had been eating me from the inside for a long time now. But now that Shepard was alive, the thoughts could eat her too.

The lure of easy conversation and similar history, the old times, brought Shepard up here again and again, but she turned on me just as easily as she said hello. I'd become the family member that she loved because she had no choice and hated because of everything else. I just wonder when she'll stop looking at me like that.

Shepard seemed to deflate at the look on my face, halting her pacing and watching me steadily.

"Was the helmet audio on?" she asked, words forced out through gritted teeth before she asked what she really wanted to know, "Was the crew listening?"

"I kept it off," I admitted. "You know I hate listening: all that huffing, puffing, and drama."

I tried to lighten the moment, but she didn't seem to appreciate it.

"I turned it on when things started to look really dicey though. Then EDI and I had to coordinate with Miranda and the shuttle pilot," I continued, watching the way Shepard's face closed off little by little.

The silence stretched further between us.

"You should go talk to her," I tried. Shepard needed no elaboration on who I was talking about; she was already shaking her head.

Then, she sighed with a pained grimace and rubbed at her forehead in defeat.

"I know," Shepard allowed. She slumped into the chair before standing straight up again and heading for the door, leaving behind nothing but a silent cockpit and a small bloodstain on the edge of the chair.

XXX

Garrus

Several hours earlier…

It was hot.

EDI informed us that Korlus was volcanic. What she hadn't mentioned was that, even with protection, it would feel like we were inside a volcano. I felt like my skin was blistering inside of my armor, even though my brain told me the environmental controls on my suit wouldn't allow for that. The temperature on Korlus was well within the range that our equipment could handle, as much good as that knowledge did me when my underarmor suit was soaked through with sweat. For once I was grateful for my armored gloves—usually a hindrance that I'd take off for a challenging target—because otherwise my rifle would've slipped right out of my hands.

Once we were inside the complex where our target, a krogan named Okeer, likely resided, I thought it might feel better. I was wrong. The complex was maybe a only a degree cooler but far more stifling. We were operating inside an oven.

We hit Korlus with almost all hands on deck. The ground team members—me, Miranda, Jacob, Zaeed, and Mordin—moved with Shepard to sweep the ground floor of the complex and work our way up to where we believed Okeer's lab was. Yet, we had never imagined the numbers the mercenary group could muster against us. It was a fight to gain every meter.

For my part, I quickly stopped my internal monologue of suffering when I assessed Miranda's condition after an hour into our assault. Due to the heat of the planet, as well as the high CO2 and toxin content in the atmosphere, everyone was forced to don full hardsuits. Kasumi had been forced to stay behind since there was no suit on the Normandy for her size. Shepard had originally decided on Miranda staying behind as well, but the woman had angrily gone to the armory and put on the second (the first being used by Jacob) Cerberus assault armor that was stored there.

Granted, Miranda had been practicing in the armor during our training sessions at Shepard's request. Or perhaps it was more like an order. After her injury on Lorek, Shepard was adamant that Miranda have more protection. The same, she said, was going to apply to all of her team members who believed they could go into a firefight in just their skin.

Miranda had come out of every practice session exhausted, hurting, and starved for air in the suit. No matter her abilities, the suit was simply not made for someone her size, and it was far, far too heavy for her.

To her credit, not one complaint passed her lips, not even now on blistering Korlus as she so obviously struggled for breath next to me, and I, for one, was definitely glad Miranda had stubbornly come along. Perhaps her movements were slower than usual with the extra armor. Perhaps she couldn't compete against the raw power of an asari commando. But Miranda's biotics were dominating the field today with her mind for efficiency.

When a heavy took aim at the group, instead of putting up a large barrier to cover all of us, Miranda constructed one small barrier—directly in front of the nozzle of the rocket launcher. The rocket exploded back into the face of its owner, and he fell to the ground screaming. Another time, Miranda broke a vanguard's leg by performing a biotic pull right at the joint of the knee. It cost her barely any effort, not like pulling a whole person, and the vanguard lay helpless and writhing on the ground until I made the easy shot. She even managed to crush a man's helmet around his head, leaving him alive but panicked and choking on CO2 until we got close enough to shoot him. If Miranda hadn't been staggering under the weight of her armor in the crazy heat of this place, I'd say she wasn't even breaking a sweat.

My glowing accolades could not be applied to the rest of the team. In fact, they made me cringe with how little effort they were putting into applying what we practiced during our sessions on the Normandy. While Shepard, Miranda, and I had been working together seamlessly (maybe because of our outing together on Lorek), our three other members were out of sync. We were still too many bull-headed individuals, used to working alone. When Zaeed was ordered to take the left, he would swing too far out. It was great for a sniper, but not great when there was a huge gap in the middle of our group that the enemy could take advantage of. Mordin tried to support Zaeed but still left us with the problem of the empty middle. Jacob proved to be the most frustrating of all. Though commanded to reinforce the left with Zaeed, he continued to drift over, sticking to Miranda's hip like a bur.

We finally made it to the last level to clear out; Okeer's lab lay just above our heads. Shepard ordered us into position, and just like before, Zaeed swung too far out, Mordin followed, and Jacob didn't go where he was supposed to.

The mercenaries flooded forward, however, not taking the middle and splitting us up like I had expected. Instead, they hammered into the weaker left side, pinning Zaeed and Mordin down with the four of us in the wrong position to help them.

Shepard gave a long-suffering sigh and analyzed the field grimly. Finally she turned her gaze on Miranda and gave an order, "Lawson, to the left. Help them get out of there."

Miranda nodded, throwing a glance at the mercenaries' backs before scrambling up. Shepard's hand darted out quickly and shoved her right back down as a rain of bullets whizzed past.

"Don't go that way," Shepard said unnecessarily. "Can't flank them. There's at least three targets behind that slab of concrete there waiting for you to move that way. Go around instead, and take Jacob with you. Garrus and I will cover. Just give Zaeed and Mordin enough breathing room to retreat over to us, got it?"

"Understood, Commander," Miranda confirmed.

Shepard and I kept a careful handle on the enemies to our front, while giving as much support to the left as we could from a distance. I wasted a lot of my clip just shooting at concrete to keep the mercenaries' heads down, but enemy reinforcements never had the opportunity to hinder Miranda and Jacob.

The two Cerberus operatives were successful: they bailed our other two teammates out. It just wasn't fast enough to stop the bullets that shattered through the remnants of Zaeed's weakened kinetic barrier and cracked through his armor at the top of his chest.

Shepard's hand was quickly at her ear, the motion activating the communications.

"Lawson, how's it look?"

Miranda was crouched carefully at Zaeed's side along with Mordin, the both of them having shuffled into the protection of a metal wall.

"Medi-gel deployed, but the reserves are now completely empty. Bleeding stopped," she said, gingerly examining the edges of the fused medi-gel with her fingers. Miranda gave an anxious sigh that echoed over the speakers. "Shepard, he's in no condition to continue. Zaeed is stable now, but one more injury could send him into shock or kill him."

Shepard swore angrily.

"Mordin, stay low with Zaeed and keep him safe. Miranda and Jacob, move in a bit closer, and then we're gonna hit them hard and take that cover they've got in the middle. When they retreat to the back of the platform, we'll split and hit them on both sides. We need to move fast and clear this level. Then we'll be safe enough to take care of Zaeed," Shepard ordered, words coming low and fast with anticipation. "Let's go!"

The muscles in my legs screamed as we all launched forward together, shooting at what parts of our enemy were visible behind their cover as we scrambled into the safety of more walls or crates a few meters in front of us. Another signal from Shepard and we were moving forward again, advancing and advancing until we could finally get close enough to take a real bite out of the mercenaries.

Our group gained the middle, and I found a good spot to hunker down for the few seconds it took for my sniper rifle to expand all the way. We were now in a large squared area whose middle was cut out to see the level below. The cut-out was hemmed in with low retaining walls that the mercenaries now used to hide behind at the back of the platform. I had taken my place directly opposite them on the square cut-out, balancing my rifle on the wall as I scoped out shots. My assault rifle lay within easy reach next to me, and I switched easily between the two as needed.

"Nice spot, Garrus. Stay there and keep 'em down," Shepard said, her back already turned as she moved away . "Lawson, Taylor, there aren't many left. We're charging in from the sides. You two go in from the right; I'll take left."

They split apart quickly, but Miranda hesitated and ducked for just a split second, looking back over her shoulder. She glowed blue, and, with tired movements, constructed an extra biotic barrier around Shepard before moving to follow Jacob. Only then did I see Miranda reinforce her own barrier.

I furrowed my brow in thought. Damn, I wonder how often she does that. Has Shepard even noticed?

A blaze of cerulean erupted across my vision: Shepard finally charging in. Biotics blossomed out spectacularly as they exploded against the warp Shepard had timed ahead of herself. I managed to get a few shots in, but Shepard, Miranda, and Jacob crushed the remaining four adversaries between them easily without much of my help.

The only moment of worry came when the last mercenary didn't go down as expected. The man struggled to his feet just behind Miranda, toting his gun into his arms to take the shot. I shouted out a warning, but it proved to be unnecessary when Miranda whipped around faster than I'd thought she could in her heavy armor. Miranda knocked the tip of her attacker's gun away from her with her forearm at the same time as she smashed her foot into his ankle. There was an unpleasant crunch and a wail of pain when he crumpled to the ground. Miranda shot the man's visor once to shatter it and a second time into his head.

All was quiet but for the hum of machines as we all stared at her in surprise. Miranda stared right back.

"What?" she demanded, looking at Shepard in particular.

"Let's just go check on Mordin and Zaeed," Shepard replied, already trotting away and expecting us to follow.

Zaeed was sitting up and talking when we got there, but one scan with Miranda's omni and she was already shaking her head no. Shepard sighed in resignation.

"Taylor, get Zaeed back to the ship. We've got to keep going," Shepard ordered, rubbing at her helmet like it was her forehead.

"All due respect, Commander, but you can't go with only three other teammates on a mission like this. It's not safe," Jacob asserted. Shepard scowled at him, her small chin twisting up with the motion as well.

"You don't get to tell me what I can and can't do. Not to mention, we've been at this all goddamn day. We all leave and who knows what kind of reinforcements they've got hiding around the corner. We'd have to force our way back in again, but with a man down," Shepard explained. I couldn't help but agree with her. We had been moving at the pace of a one-legged volus, and that was with starting the day fresh. To do this again tomorrow, exhausted from today's fighting, would be hell.

"So move out when Zaeed is ready, and get him to the ship as quickly as you can manage," Shepard ordered again, her tone revealing her impatience.

Now, in my time with C-Sec and subsequent traveling on the Normandy, I quickly learned that human body language could manifest itself in rather explosive terms or very minute terms. This situation was one of the latter. If I hadn't been watching closely, I wouldn't have seen Jacob's head turn just that slightly towards Miranda, as if checking for approval. It was an understandable movement, at least: Jacob had, in fact, been working under Miranda for two years. Miranda, to her credit, kept a carefully neutral expression, and Jacob finally saluted to Shepard and stepped away to Zaeed.

Were I a different turian, I might have thought the situation resolved. As it was, I saw that Shepard had somehow managed to deepen her scowl even further, lines forming at the edges of her mouth, and that Miranda's face was somehow too calm, falsely relaxed but in a way that couldn't hide the lines of anxiety that formed at her eyes.

The silence stretched until Shepard finally turned on her heel and headed to the ramp that would take us to the next platform. Miranda followed, and Mordin and I, the two aliens amongst humans on the Normandy, shrugged at each other before trailing after as well.

XXX

The humans have a saying: when it rains, it pours. A more apt expression I couldn't find for this day. We had faced a small army of mercenaries only to discover we would need to fight krogan and a YMIR mech as well. And, naturally, the one krogan that was actually sympathetic to us and might help us fight, Okeer, was too busy doing some nonsense with a test tube. Of course, he had spouted some business about the genophage first in order to convince us to go get ourselves killed so he could save his work. Ditching the test tube krogan he'd grown was apparently not an option.

I'm pretty sure, at that point, Shepard and I had both considered how likely it was that we could bodily haul Okeer off the planet. The odds weren't looking in our favor either way.

So, here we were, pinned down on the back platform and forced behind slim metal sheeting to shield us from the YMIR mech's absolute shredding of anything that moved. Krogan came in close on both sides while some crazy woman named Jedore rained missiles at us from a distance. I was tired. We were all tired.

"Wow, I'm getting flashbacks from the Krogan Rebellions," I said with a wheeze.

Shepard's response came crackling over the helmet communicators. "Garrus, you dumbass, you weren't alive then."

"Call it ancestral memory," I joked. I gave a cheer at the same time when I managed to finally take a chunk out of Jedore's shoulder.

"I'm sure if Mordin were here," Miranda's voice sounded next, heavy and out of breath, "he could explain all the different ways that that kind of ancestral memory is a completely ridiculous theory."

Mordin had been sent back to the labs to make sure Okeer stayed alive, the whole reason we were here, when the lab alarms went off. So we were down to three. Shepard was our heavy hitter, taking the right side of our vertically narrow platform. She placed me in the middle, better protected and with orders to use that extra freedom to take out Jedore. Miranda was left to hold the left side which, with little room to maneuver, had quickly turned into something of a fist fight. Normally, I'd wager her biotics against any of the krogan, but her exhaustion was obvious for anyone to see.

Shepard's plan wasn't bad necessarily, but I figured I could have handled the left side much easier with my assault rifle. It seemed the only reason she hadn't given Miranda the middle was because it had the best vantage to lead the fight. Shepard would have to trust Miranda to give out orders, and, stubborn to a fault, it was something Shepard wouldn't consider.

Maybe I should've argued harder against the decision. We've got to get Miranda out of there, I found myself thinking. Yet the problem was how.

Shepard was far off. By giving me the middle, she'd given me the better view of our battlefield, and she clearly hadn't noticed the struggle of the Cerberus operative on the far side of the chamber. She had pulled out her own missile launcher and was focusing on the mech, but it seemed like the targeting was damaged because the missiles kept going wide. I was currently out of clips for my assault rifle, leaving only one precious clip for my sniper rifle.

"Shepard, we're in some real trouble over here," I spoke into my helmet.

Shepard checked back and cursed.

"Garrus, abandon the middle. I'll keep the mech distracted over here," Shepard said. She pulled her shotgun off her back, took the clip out, and tossed it over to me. "That's my last clip. Pray one of these missiles actually hits that junk pile, and go get Miranda out of there."

It was like they sensed weakness, two krogan charging on Miranda at once. I took a jump at one krogan's back, managing to hook a finger into the back of his helmet and yank it off. The krogan gave a yell and charged forward to dislodge me, but I already had my talons ripping his crest up so I could jam my gun into the sensitive area beneath. I squeezed the trigger, and the krogan fell with one shot. I rolled back to my feet. The kill had given me extra room to move, but the same couldn't be said for Miranda.

While she had managed to knock the shotgun from her enemy's hands, he had adapted, not by going after it like she'd expected, but by grabbing her with his newly freed hands and slamming her against the wall. Miranda's heavy armor was protecting her from the shattering of bones that would've been the case otherwise, but there was sure to be heavy bruising. I could see the blood dripping from her nose; her biotics were exhausted. I ran to her.

I heard an explosion and a shout of triumph as Shepard managed to take down the YMIR mech, then a blue cannon ball blowing past me as Shepard surpassed me in the attempt to save Miranda. It worked, too, until I realized that all three of us presented an easy target.

Jedore's rocket hit me in the back.

XXX

There was a strange ringing in my ears, constant, jarring. I couldn't think, couldn't move. Was I...floating? No, there was a body underneath me. Carrying me. I glanced down and saw a field of white splattered with blue. Blood? Was that my blood? My chest ached and now I could feel every laborious step the person underneath me took. I should know who they were...dark hair, white, so much white. How did I get here?

"Give him here, Lawson," I heard Shepard order. I felt the head underneath me shake. And, wow, that little movement hurt like hell. I heard a groan. It must have been mine, and the movement below me stilled.

"I'm stronger than I look, Shepard. The path out of the complex is clear, for now, and Joker can send the shuttle for us. You need to get back to the labs," Miranda asserted.

"We already sent Mordin when the alarms when off," Shepard argued. The head shook again and I gasped.

"And now he isn't answering. Think of the mission, Shepard," Miranda growled.

I heard harsh footsteps moving in the opposite direction.

Reality was coming at me in pieces, blurs of color. Miranda's hands were slick against my armor, fighting to gain purchase. I could feel her slim shoulders cutting into my side. I was impossibly big above her, but she was moving forward. Step, step, readjust. So much blood. I thought I could hear it dripping against the concrete when we moved. That probably wasn't real.

I didn't realize I'd passed out until a sharp pain in my arm brought me back. Big blue eyes hovered over me, but I didn't understand what she was saying. Human words. Human? My translator was out, I realized. I noticed I could see Miranda's bare face: her helmet was off. I glanced around. We were on the shuttle, but it wasn't moving.

Everything started spinning again, then another needle was jammed into my arm. Stims. Miranda was hitting me with stims. Her arms moved above me again, and I saw her pour medi-gel into the gap in my armor. The medical interface in my armor would have injected all my reserves, but Miranda must have found more on the shuttle.

An impossible amount of my blood seemed to be outside of my body; I couldn't stop staring at it. It was even in streaks across Miranda's face where she'd accidentally rubbed the back of her hand. Miranda's face looked worried, and she was talking some more, but I was finally feeling less pain. She slammed her fist a few times on the wall to tell the shuttle pilot to take off.

When I opened my eyes again, there was more white. This time there was no more blue, no more Miranda. I felt a bed underneath me. The medbay. We were back on the Normandy.

"Shepard, I want you out!"

Shepard protested. I heard a large crash against a wall.

"I just want to help," Shepard tried, her voice impossibly small. I'd never heard her speak to Chakwas that way.

"You're a distraction. So out!" Chakwas asserted. Her words sounded so loud bouncing around in my head.

"It's my fault. Oh my God, it's all my fault," I heard Shepard cry, before the sounds became muffled. They must have shut the door on her.

I shut my eyes again.

XXX

Miranda

This area of the Citadel was darker, back lit by the neon signs of various nightclubs and restaurants. Blurs of light also streaked across the backdrop from the constant stream of cars zooming by to various destinations. It was noisy. It was chaotic. And I sat above, watching it all.

From my balcony, I saw a group of soldiers stumbling out of a bar just a few meters down the road. They were so obviously fresh on shore leave, faces carefully shaved and pulling subconsciously on the casual clothes that didn't fit quite right after so long in uniform. It felt so weird that I'd been on a ship long enough to be able to notice something like that.

There was an asari making her way slowly through the crowd of people, resplendent in a gown of silver that had just enough class for the kind of clubs she was making her way towards. I saw her pause occasionally, straining her neck to look behind her, and I imagined she was searching for a friend or a lover who had missed their meeting time. A large krogan walking with, of all people, a turian trailed just behind the silver clad asari, gaining about as much attention as you would imagine. The animosity between turians and krogans had never really died down enough to be considered old history, but these two walked close together, hands brushing slightly while they both glanced nervously at the people staring at them. I knew them not at all, but I envisioned a reluctant romance, the kind where you don't realize you've fallen for your enemy until it's already far too late to back out.

I was just another face in the crowd, a blur of eyes and lips and cheeks that was easily forgotten by the passersby, and I reveled in the anonymity. I hadn't realized how absolutely trying the cramped quarters on the Normandy had become until I had been released, and, though the circumstances of the impromptu shore leave were unfortunate, I felt like I could finally breathe where before had been all tightness in my chest. I had spent two years on the small Lazarus station and thought myself prepared for the conditions I'd find during a long term cruise on a spaceship. But on Lazarus, I'd had a private suite I could retire to, and I had worked with a slightly different staff from day to day. There had been space; I could be alone.

There was no retreat on the Normandy. I had one door, the door to my office/bedroom, and the dangerous combination of a commander who had no problem opening said door whenever she wished. I saw the same people every day, and I knew way too much about them. Hearing gossip was inevitable, and I knew who was sleeping with whom and how so-and-so was worried about his family because they were on such-and-such colony. It was exhausting. I didn't want to know so much about these people. Even more, I didn't want these people to know about me. We were professionals, and there were lines. Yet, I'd woken this morning to a coffee just the way I liked it sitting hot on my desk.

It was that small gesture that had been too much. I'd left the ship without even getting breakfast, desperate to get off after the tension-fraught, two day trip between the Imir System and the Citadel. We had finally docked, Garrus was transported to the hospital, and I'd finally disappeared to this corner balcony of a restaurant. Here, I didn't have to think about what would happen if Garrus were no longer fit to come with us on the mission. I didn't have to think about how my back and my arms were still screaming at me from my carrying, though it had been accomplished with a little biotic help, of a couple hundred pounds of injured turian dead weight for over a mile. I didn't have to see the haunted look in Shepard's eyes as she basically camped out between the med bay and the mess hall, refusing to go too far from her injured friend.

I especially didn't think about the worrying message I'd received about Oriana this morning. It wasn't serious at the moment; the warning flags could be nothing. Only the nagging worry wouldn't go away, and my mind churned with the things I would have to take care of if her security actually was compromised. I'd have to move her, uproot her family, and damn my father for ruining everything.

Sitting on this darkened balcony of the Citadel, I was given a moment's reprieve. The commander was safely far away at the hospital, and I hadn't left a location for anyone to find me. The tracking was off on my omni, though the Normandy could still call in case of an emergency. Barring that, I had declared myself off duty. To sit here. And watch people walk by. And nothing else.

"If I'd wanted to be bothered, I would have told you where I was going," I said with a disgruntled sigh when I heard the familiar, measured steps sound behind me.

I didn't even bother to turn to confirm the identity of my visitor. The heat of her was so very there next to me that it was impossible to mistake her. I shifted uncomfortably.

I reached across the small table and turned the extra wine glass over, a gesture that Shepard understood to mean 'sit down.' It was a relief for her to move away from me but, at the same time, a disappointment, and I hated the rainbow of emotions that tittered and roared within me.

"I suppose it's my fault for not directly ordering EDI to withhold my location. No doubt she helped you," I muttered. Shepard gave an ambiguous shrug and set an unmarked box on the ground before she lowered herself into the chair. I bit my lip and managed to keep from asking what was in it. It was probably some new armor piece or gun mod, something completely necessary. Shepard wouldn't overspend so quickly after the last incident. I forced myself not to check the mission accounts on my omni-tool, instead forcing my eyes to stay on Shepard.

For once, Shepard was wearing normal clothes, not armor or a uniform. She had on straight cut jeans and sneakers that I had never seen before. Her auburn tresses were hanging loose and messy around her small, angular face. It was all very low class for an establishment like this, but Shepard hardly seemed to notice, her eyes not even meeting mine. Worn underneath her usual N7 jacket, I noticed, was a spare blouse of mine, gone missing from my drawers almost a week ago: the latest in a long list of personal items to disappear from my room. When was she even finding the time to steal my belongings?

I frowned, but said nothing. Shepard did these things in a childish attempt to irritate me, and any complaint only seemed to egg her on. More importantly, I focused on my irritation in order to furiously beat back the flush of heat that settled low in my stomach and closed my throat when I thought about Shepard wearing my clothes.

Luckily Shepard hadn't noticed my staring—which had, in fact, been happening for at least a full minute—while she did nothing but fidget with the stem of her now full wine glass. I cocked an eyebrow. Shepard wasn't one for fidgeting.

"Shepard," I said lowly but sternly as I prompted, "You must be here for a reason."

"I needed to speak with you," Shepard gritted out, still looking disgruntled to be here.

"Surely, you'd rather be at the hospital waiting for Garrus," I said, sipping my wine gently.

"Yeah, I was, but they said he'd have a few hours before he woke up. And this is important," Shepard said, finally meeting my eyes. I sat back in my chair and waited for the rest. "I came to apologize," Shepard admitted.

I almost choked on my wine.

"Look, I've worked with a questionably-sane krogan mercenary, I'm close friends with a turian who has a very loose interpretation of galactic law, and I even allowed the daughter of my enemy to join my crew. And now? I've recruited a mad scientist salarian and a tank bred krogan, and we'll soon be going to get an actual convict locked up on an actual prison ship," Shepard launched into a speech that sounded mildly rehearsed.

"I'm familiar with the dossiers. Are you going somewhere with this?" I cut in, and Shepard scowled.

"My point is that you barely rank when it comes to some of the things my other crew members have done," Shepard explained, and I bristled at the implication.

"I wouldn't underestimate me," I snapped, and Shepard rolled her eyes with a huff.

"What I mean is that, besides being part of a horrible organization—"

"An organization that brought you back to life," I corrected.

"Let me finish!" Shepard barked, and I acquiesced by drinking from my wine again instead of talking. "Like I said, besides being part of Cerberus, you personally haven't given me a reason to distrust you. And I have treated you unfairly, despite your proving time and again that you are an asset to the team. If I had realized this sooner, I would've placed you appropriately on the field, and Garrus wouldn't be in the hospital right now."

Her words were stiff and awkward, like they tasted bad coming out of her mouth, but, still, she said them. Her mouth puckered comically with her distaste, and, if it weren't such a delicate moment, I might have laughed.

"I just...needed to thank you," Shepard confessed quietly. "Chakwas said that if you hadn't traiged Garrus in the field, he never would have survived."

"I'm sure I only bought him minutes, at best. Chakwas did all the work; I know very little of turian physiology," I contended.

"And then you carried him. Garrus is so much larger than either of us; I'm not really sure how you managed on your own," Shepard tried to continue her apology, and my mind flashed to the excruciating minutes of maneuvering with Garrus slumped along my shoulders. Blue blood had dripped to the ground behind us, trailing down my back and my arms. I had been tired and uncomfortable. And Garrus was heavy. I decided not to tell Shepard I had almost dropped him at one point.

"I used my biotics to help," I answered. "Look, it was nothing. I was just doing-"

"Don't," Shepard warned in a low growl. "Don't say that, and stop treating this like it meant nothing. It was everything. You saved him. And then didn't even protest the detour to get him to the Citadel."

I looked at her in astonishment.

"You thought I would argue to let him die?" I demanded. "Surely even you don't think that little of me."

"I don't know," Shepard said, shaking her head. "Garrus might have argued. It's all about the greater good with him. These extra days on the Citadel could be days where the Collectors attack another colony while our backs are turned."

"Or they could attack a colony anyway," I pointed out. "It's not like we know where they're coming from yet. And Mordin still needs time to protect us against the Collectors' swarms."

"Still. I needed to say thank you," Shepard said, and, for just a moment, I saw a glimpse of a different Shepard. She was warm. She was gentle. And she was looking at me like...No, stop, I wanted to tell her. Don't.

But then the look was gone, hidden back behind Shepard's careful walls. Though, those walls might not have been as high as they used to be.

"I think we should...restart. Or something. A blank slate," Shepard pressed on, face deliberately closed off. "We're a team, and it's time that we acted like it."

The warmth that had sprung from Shepard's gratitude was trampled easily under my pride as it stirred slightly in my chest, an easily awoken animal that resented the insinuation that this was somehow my fault as well. I reigned myself in, but still the feeling sat deep and rankled.

"What exactly does that mean?" I asked cooly.

"No more secrets. We get everything out in the open, and then stop lying to each other," Shepard proposed, meeting my eyes earnestly.

"You mean I stop lying to you," I snapped. It came out harsher than I intended. I closed my eyes briefly and took a breath before continuing, "It's not like you have anything I don't know already."

Shepard's eyes blazed at my small outburst, but she showed nothing else besides a slight thinning of her lips. We both had too much pride for our own good.

"I want to trust you, Lawson," Shepard said softly, but, for all her words, the fact that she still used only my last name spoke volumes. "We don't have to hate each other."

"You seem to be speaking for us quite a bit," I disagreed. "I have never hated you."

That horrifyingly soft look blinked across Shepard's eyes again as she looked at me in genuine surprise, like that was the last thing she expected me to say. Her brows pulled down in consternation as she searched my face, and suddenly I found myself feeling raw and open, vulnerable. I hated the way her eyes seemed to cut through me, and I quickly looked away. Then I hated myself for looking away: never, ever break eye contact during an argument.

"There are some things I'm not authorized to tell you," I pointed out, drawing Shepard's attention back to our discussion.

"Has authorization ever really stopped you?" Shepard asked, and I clenched my jaw as I regarded her.

"Fine," I said, the word clipped and short. "What do you want to know?"

Shepard's lips twitched into something like a pained smile. Maybe she caught that I was careful to promise nothing, careful not to say I wouldn't lie. That didn't mean I wasn't going to try. There was a small list of things that I really couldn't tell her. Barring her asking about those directly, I didn't see why I couldn't fill her in on anything she wanted to know.

"Have you been blocking my correspondence?" Shepard prompted, and I barely restrained my exasperated sigh. Of course she would start with that. Don't choose something easy, Shepard.

"Yes," I answered.

Shepard growled in irritation. "You're not a genie where I have to be specific with my requests. Yes or no is not going to cut it."

"Did I not answer the question? How much more do you want?" I demanded cheekily.

"Funny, here I thought you might participate without making this difficult. My mistake," Shepard grunted.

I sighed in defeat. I'd be damned before I let Shepard turn this into my fault. "You've actually received most of it by now. I started letting the harmless ones through—against orders, I might add," I admitted. After Garrus guessed what was going on, I mentally added. She doesn't really need all the details, right?

"And the 'harmful' ones? You still have some of them?" Shepard asked, and I nodded. She took in a breath before asking shakily, "From Liara?"

I nodded slowly, feeling my face pinch up in anticipation.

"You've read them," she stated, not even bothering to phrase it as a question. "Where is she?"

"Illium," I said quickly.

"Illium," Shepard repeated, voice twisting slightly in disgust. "Damn it; Aria mentioned...what was she talking about? What has Liara gotten herself into?"

"Liara didn't exactly choose a holiday resort. Most dealings on Illium tend to be distasteful," I warned. "Nothing I've heard has been good. She's begun working as an information broker, though doing quite well, I'll add. Likely, that would've been the end of it, but Liara has developed an unhealthy interest in the Shadow Broker."

I tried to keep contained the shudder of disgust and anxiety that mentioning the Broker caused me. I must not have been very successful because Shepard fixed me with a strange look. I held my breath in worry as Shepard kept her eyes on me.

No doubt she was thinking of her next question, and there were a number of things that I didn't relish explaining. For example, why Liara happened to be going after the Shadow Broker. Shepard fiddled with the cuffs of her jacket with a look that bordered between longing and anger, and I was so sure her next question was going to be the exact question I didn't want to answer.

"Anyone else?" Shepard asked.

All of my explanations dried up in my throat, and I let out an awkward coughing noise as I tried to change tracks.

"You don't-?" I tried to ask, but Shepard cut in quickly.

"I don't want to know," Shepard said sharply. "It hurts less...just—I don't want to know. Don't even send the letters on. It won't change anything."

"But-," I tried, but her look cut me off instantly. "Alright, the second letter is from your mother. Would you-?"

Shepard stopped me again.

"You can keep that one, too," she said harshly. "Let me guess: was it about the money?"

"I'm sorry? What money?" I asked in confusion.

"So, not that then, at least. Anderson managed to get most of my money sent back to me. The paperwork finally cleared," Shepard explained. I caught her eyes flicker briefly towards the package sitting at her feet. "Considering that the money had been sent to my closest living relative, my mother, I would've thought she'd be trying to get it back."

I tried to keep my poker face, but apparently not well enough because within seconds Shepard was adding sarcastically, "Don't worry, Lawson. Next time I overspend, it won't have to come out of the mission money."

If I were someone else, I might've giggled at her joke. Instead, a smile snuck its way past my guard and onto my face, and, surprisingly, Shepard tentatively returned it. I fought to hide the hitch in my breathing.

I broke eye contact first.

"So, I'll, ah, keep those tucked away for you. In case you change your mind," I stated, folding my hands in front of me in an attempt to look more put together than I felt.

"Wait, did you say 'second letter' earlier? As in, they both only sent me one message? It's been over a month," Shepard burst out, frowning.

Shepard didn't even really need my answer. Her face was growing harder by the second as her mouth twisted in an angry grimace, and her jaw jutted out stubbornly. Yet, for all the anger that her face showed, I didn't think I'd ever seen Shepard look so openly devastated. And as one of her fists balled up in the extra material of her jacket pocket, something finally clicked into place for me.

I realized what Shepard had meant by calling herself an orphan that morning when we were in her cabin. She had just never been wanted. She was an orphan whose mother happened to still be alive, a mother who thought one message was enough when her only daughter had been miraculously brought back to life.

And there, there was a face I intimately recognized, the one that had seemed perpetually etched onto mine throughout my childhood. It was a look I left behind when I left Father and promised myself that he would never have that kind of power over me again.

Shepard's situation may not have been exactly the same, but they were dangerously similar. Shepard's mother never wanted a daughter, and Father never truly wanted a daughter either. I was a legacy, a thing to be replaced when I eventually didn't live up to his standards. Father wanted his genetic copy, modified to be obediently perfect. Perfection to him sat quietly by the window while everyone her age played joyfully outside. Perfection to him trained eight hours or more a day to be everything that he wanted. Perfection to him pretended, even in the little things, to be perfect. Perhaps it would have been better to be ignored completely by my parent, like Shepard, than have only the things that made me an actual person be willfully overlooked. Or maybe, I thought looking at Shepard, they are both bloody horrible.

Yet, somewhere with that revelation, one of my careful walls faltered, and my heart gave a painful squeeze of sympathy. Before I thought better of it, I reached to cover Shepard's hand with my own on the table, but she had already wrenched her hand back quickly like she'd been burned. My hand was left hovering awkwardly in the center of the table, and I hurriedly slid it back in my lap, careful to keep my face blank so Shepard wouldn't see the hurt ripple across it.

"You forgot about the letter you kept from Ashley," Shepard finally said, breaking the silence.

"I was going to bring it up next," I said defensively. I wasn't; I'd completely forgotten about that one. Does that count against the no lying rule? Bloody hell. "How did you know?"

"Garrus mentioned that he ran into Ashley on the Citadel. According to her, she sent me a message trying to meet up. A message I conveniently never received," Shepard said pointedly.

"That...is accurate," I admitted, grimacing slightly. "I was—and still am, for that matter—under orders to keep you from any distractions."

"And you always do what you're told, is that right?" Shepard challenged.

The anger in my chest positively burned at her accusation. I was not some lackey to be ordered about.

"Of course not," I snapped. "But I agreed with the order. You have to admit: you would have gone shooting off into the horizon at the first hint of getting one of your old crew back."

"That might explain Liara, but Ashley came to me. Why keep me away from her? She'd never leave the Alliance to join me, but it would've been nice to simply talk to her!" Shepard exclaimed. "Garrus said she was planning on meeting me after the Council meeting. When Ash didn't show, he told me about her plan. I looked for her all over the place, damn it. And you...you just walked off and said nothing."

"I was doing my job. You can't fault me for that," I demanded. Shepard's eyes narrowed.

"What exactly did you do to her?" Shepard interrogated, and I let out a harsh bark of laughter.

"I intervened," I replied smoothly. "Don't worry, Shepard. I manage problems with tactics other than just shooting them."

Shepard caught the barb immediately and managed to make rolling her eyes seem hostile, but her reply was slow in coming. The silence stretched as her fingers played with the condensation collected on her water glass. She now seemed at a loss for questions.

My heart beat sped up in the silence because I knew, knew that now was the time if I was going to tell her about Elise. I could tell her exactly why I made sure Ashley was gone as soon as I knew the extent of her knowledge on the subject. Because, as it turns out, Ashley had been telling the truth. I'd done my own research, looking through Cerberus data, and anytime I typed in 'Elise Nissa,' the files were blocked. That had been the worst part. I had hoped my research would turn up nothing, but instead I was saddled with even more questions. However, there was one thing I could be certain of: Elise had been employed by Cerberus.

If I told Shepard now, I would have to watch as the betrayal sank into her, a feeling I'd imagine she'd had too much practice learning to shoulder, but at least she would know the truth. It was her right to know. And, yet, just like Shepard asked me to keep her letters from her, I knew it would be easier for her to remain ignorant. Then my window of opportunity was rushing closed as Shepard fidgeted in place and started to reach for the box she'd brought in with her.

"Was there nothing else you wanted to know?" I asked quickly, buying more time to decide.

Shepard watched me levelly, hands paused mid-reach.

"There was nothing else that I could think of that you might be keeping from me. I'm not interested in company secrets, just as they pertain to me. I'd ask more about the Lazarus project, but I doubt I'd understand half of what you were talking about," Shepard informed me cooly. "But you would tell me if there was something I needed to know."

The last part was said half like a question, half like a challenge, and my face froze. Tell or don't tell? Is it truly lying to withhold information out of compassion? But it's not my right to decide for her. I'm going to tell her.

I opened my mouth to do just that, but what came out instead was, "Of course, Shepard."

Bloody hell.

Shepard gave a small nod, and then fully reached down to grab the box and put it up on the table. It was a plain box and rather large, but I could see nothing about it that might tell me what was inside it. However, Shepard was already pushing it over to me.

"A gift for you," Shepard said needlessly.

In a loss for words, I just nodded numbly as I pulled open the tabs to the box. Inside was something very sleek and very black, and, as I pulled a piece out and into the light, I realized it was a brand new hardsuit.

The section I held was part of the torso, similar to Shepard's but with more mesh for extra movement. I couldn't help but reach in again and again to take out each piece and lay it in front of me. Every part of the armor felt like a feather compared to the armor I had been wearing on Korlus, yet I could see that it would still provide full environmental seals and medical support.

It was gorgeous, elegantly designed from the top all the way down to the matching, reinforced boots. And on the left side of the chest, where the Cerberus logo belonged on every other uniform I owned, there was a small stylized version of my initials, ML. I touched it and felt trapped in an ocean of emotions I didn't even want to try and identify.

I saw the manufacturer's label and gasped. This had not come cheaply.

"You need actual armor. To be honest, with the amount of money Cerberus seems to have, I'm surprised you don't have something already. Well, besides that monster piece of Cerberus armor that was already on the ship," Shepard continued.

"Lazarus Cell wasn't originally a combat cell," I rasped out. My throat was curiously tight, and I coughed to try and get rid of it. "With the quick exit from the station, much was left behind. I hadn't thought to try and requisition…" I trailed off, trying to get a hold of myself.

"This is custom work," I said slowly, staring at the armguard that easily clipped around my forearm like a second skin. "How did you..?"

"Easy. I took scans of you, and uploaded them for the armorer," Shepard related, like it was the simplest thing in the world to get full body scans of someone without their noticing. "I used a cash advance from Anderson and ordered it the first time we stopped on the Citadel. Gave a little extra for the rush job."

"Our first stop on the Citadel?" I confirmed in disbelief. "You hated me then, Shepard."

"Maybe," she acknowledged, "but that doesn't mean that I wanted you dead." I tried not to read into her use of the past tense, that she didn't correct herself and say that she still hated me now.

Shepard shrugged, and then continued seriously, "Look, Lawson, this doesn't mean I like you, and it doesn't make us friends. Let's just call it a peace offering at best."

I traced a finger along the lines of my new armor in appreciation and looked up to see Shepard watching my movements intently. Her eyes burned into me, and still that tightness in my throat was not going away. I wanted her to know how much it meant, that she thought of this, that she cared even an ounce about my wellbeing when everything else she'd done indicated otherwise. But the words weren't coming, and I found myself nodding slowly instead.

XXX

Our conversation had ended quickly after that. Shepard left to go and check on Garrus in the hospital while I stayed a bit longer to finish my wine before making my way back to the Normandy. I stored my new armor and brushed my hands along the pieces once more in wonder. From there, it was comforting to fall back into my usual night routine: make-up off, shower, brush teeth, robe. After a quick check of my computer, I happily tucked myself into my waiting bed with a sigh of contentment.

It was strange: this feeling sitting heavy on my chest as I snuggled into my blankets. I could honestly say that Shepard's offer of peace brought me an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. It's not like I actually did much to earn it, but it was something more than I'd ever imagined a month ago.

And, yet, here I was setting myself to screw everything up. Shepard was finally transitioning to tolerating me, and I'd been given the perfect opportunity to reveal what I knew about Elise with the minimal amount of fallout. But I'd faltered. Now, whatever trust she builds with me would be like building on sand: I'll forever be waiting for when it washes out from underneath us.

I rolled over and willed myself to sleep, but I needn't have bothered. I could only have been asleep for a few hours when I was woken again by a harsh knock sounding at my door. A hushed voice spoke right on the other side, followed by a much louder and much clearer one.

"Don't worry; I have authorization," I heard Shepard murmur.

Disoriented, I barely scrambled out of the bed and into my robe before the door opened, flooding the room with the harsh lights. Shepard's darkened figure slumped against the door frame while a crew member kept a hand at her elbow.

"What in the world is going on here?" I rasped out drowsily.

"I apologize, Miss Lawson. I ran into the commander a few minutes ago, and she was very insistent that she come see you," the crewman explained. I recognized him immediately as Crewman Mills, one of the few whose rank allowed him on the second deck with the CIC.

"I don't understand. You said you were staying with Garrus in the hospital tonight," I said, directing the unspoken question at Shepard.

"She said…" Redmond Mills started to answer for Shepard, but he quickly found a clumsy palm clasped over his mouth.

"Shh," Shepard hissed at him, not moving her hand. "I can speak for myself. They kicked me out of Garrus' room. Said that visiting hours were over and only blood relatives could stay. I tried to convince them that I was his sister, but they didn't believe me."

I squinted at her, trying in vain to see her face with the light shining behind her head. There was something off, but I couldn't place it with my brain still only at half speed from my rude awakening. The lights in my cabin were finally waking up with the movement in the room, though, and I could then see a glassy eyed Shepard making her way towards me on unsteady feet. It was eerily like the start of all the dreams I steadily denied having every night, right up until she smacked into me with a soft 'oof.'

"You're drunk," I realized as the smell of her crashed over me. What a nightmare.

"Of course I'm drunk. I almost killed my best friend," Shepard slurred into my shoulder. She was draped heavily on me, her arms wrapped around me in what could only be described as a very tight hug.

I looked over at Crewman Mills in a panic. "Did anyone else see her like this?"

"No," he reassured me. "She seemed normal, right up until she disappeared into the lab and tried to get to the third deck through the engineering ducts instead of the elevator. I went to investigate when I heard her fall, and, since we're on skeleton shifts with the Normandy docked, there was no one else around to see her."

"I couldn't take the elevator," Shepard defended. Then she was nuzzling her face into the side of my neck, and oh. I attempted to break out of her embrace, but she was surprisingly strong in her state and not letting me go. "Miranda would have seen me if I'd taken the elevator."

I rolled my eyes at her drunken logic and snarked needlessly, "Yes, I definitely would have seen you through my closed door and closed eyelids."

"C'mon." I motioned at Mills to join me. "Let's get her up to her cabin."

"I doubt…" the crewman tried to say, but was cut off by an angry Shepard again.

"I'm not going up to my cabin," she disagreed vehemently.

"...she'll be willing to go," Mills finished apologetically, running his fingers anxiously through his greying hair. "She was determined to come here instead."

I sighed impatiently, finally wrapping an arm around Shepard's back to distribute her weight better. I eyed the crewman warily over Shepard's shoulder; I wasn't sure I liked how he was looking at the two of us.

"You smell so nice," Shepard sighed into my hair, and I could feel the flush creep all the way down to my collarbone.

"I will take care of this," I determined, dismissing Mills with a motion to the door before calling him back. "Mills, I trust you realize this is not something the rest of the crew should know?"

I merely meant Shepard's drunkenness—it wasn't exactly the kind of behavior I wanted the crew to know about—but then Mills got that look on his face when he nodded in agreement. I looked at the position I was in and then back at him and realized the double meaning that could be read into my request. And I should have called him back, corrected him, but he was already gone quickly from the room and towards the elevator. Damn it.

"Shepard, you should go to your own bed. You'll be much more comfortable," I reasoned, but Shepard shook her head 'no' into my shoulder. Hours ago she flinched before I even touched her," I thought dryly, and now she won't let me go. The irony.

"I don't want to sleep in that big room alone," Shepard confessed.

At that, the stupid squeeze of sympathy was back, so much so that I found myself leading the drunk commander over to my bed. With my arm wrapped around her lower back, I sat her down gently and pulled off her sneakers before tucking her firmly under the covers. Bloodshot emerald eyes blinked at me, struggling under the weight of their eyelids until they finally fluttered shut, and Shepard gave a sigh of contentment.

It was like the days had rolled backwards and we were once again on Lazarus station with the commander lying prone in front of me. I'd almost forgotten how very young she could look, how small. Yet, now there was a new little scar above her left eyebrow, and Shepard scrunched her mouth up slightly and twitched with her dreams instead of lying passively. Also, she was on my pillow. That was new.

But old habits die hard. So, I did what I had always done back then: run one last scan with my omni and softly brush her unruly hair out of her face.

Then I grabbed my spare pillow and a blanket from the closet and made myself comfortable on the couch, breathing out a huff of anxiety into the fresh pillow case. Shepard is in my room. Shepard is in my room, and she's going to wake up tomorrow and freak out. What if this breaks whatever small peace we gained today?

I tossed on the couch, which, though aesthetically pleasing, was rather uncomfortable. The leather stuck to my skin, so I scrambled up for some sweatpants and a shirt before lying back down. It wasn't helping much.

Shepard gave a whimper in her sleep, and I turned my back to her, trying to ignore. The room felt suddenly very small, like I could hear even the twitch of Shepard's fingers wrapped around the pillow case. When the whimper came again, it rang in my ears like a siren instead of the soft sigh it really was.

Shepard moaned a third time, and I was up like a shot. I perched carefully on the edge of the bed and reached out a tentative hand, afraid. I wondered what horror was stalking her dreams, if it was the same worries that plagued her waking hours as well. I stroked Shepard's hair, and she stilled.

"What happened with Garrus, it wasn't all your fault, Shepard," I whispered. Still, her hands clenched white against the covers. I gently pulled at her fingers until they released, rubbing at her knuckles tenderly. I remembered what Shepard had said, that night when she confessed her nightmares to Garrus over pancakes. So I whispered the words again, the ones from when she'd first woken up: "Shepard, you're okay. I'm here."

I didn't hear another sound from her for the rest of the night.

* * *

**Apologies for the break there. I have no excuses besides being a slow writer, discovering the wonder that is Witcher 3, and hating to write action scenes. On that note, how are the action scenes turning out? Because they're my least favorite to write, I always worry that they aren't very good. Constructive criticism on that point would be very much appreciated. **

**As always, thank to everyone for all the encouragement you guys give me in the form of fav's, follows, and reviews. Of course, big thanks also goes to AblatedCrayon for being such a wonderful beta reader and dealing with all of my nonsense. **


	14. Lineage

Ch. 14: Lineage

Miranda

I blinked at the dimly lit ceiling hanging above me and squinted at the air vent installed there. Something was off, but I couldn't quite place it, especially once my thoughts wandered into the realm of _I really need to get that report done. I sent the memo on proper use of the _Normandy'_s common areas yesterday, so hopefully _those _problems will go away. If only Hawthorne hadn't thought of such an imaginative use for the lounge bar stools, I wouldn't even have to think about these things. I also need to ask EDI to do a quick inventory of our food and water stores. It'll be much easier to restock while we're here. Plus I need to ask Shepard..._

As her name crossed my thoughts, an uncomfortable feeling sank into my stomach, and I once again found myself glaring at an air vent that shouldn't be above me. I shoved an arm under the blankets and worked to start untwisting the sweatpants that had hitched up and now strangled my thighs. Leather squeaked underneath me during my struggle, and I froze. _Leather? Right. I'm on my couch, which explains the air vent. The couch that I slept on last night because of Shepard. Which means Shepard is..._

I sharply pushed myself up onto my forearms and searched the room with my eyes. My bed, which sat only a few feet from me, was completely empty. The covers were made up precisely, not even a wrinkle in the duvet.

And I just stared at it, stared out how perfect it could look after last night. Shepard had come in like a whirlwind, disturbing everything, and yet the only trace she had left was this sinking feeling of disappointment. _I mean what had I really expected? We aren't friends. It's not like she was going to wake me up to say goodbye. Or just not sneak out in the first place. Why am I being so unreasonable about this?_

I beat my feelings into submission and then clambered up from the couch. I would handle one thing at a time, and paperwork could come first: easy, mindless paperwork. I walked towards my wardrobe and halted abruptly, double taking at a steaming cup of perfectly made coffee sitting on my desk waiting for me—just like yesterday. I eyed the plain white cup like it might reveal its mystery donor. My first thought was that it might be Shepard, but of course, that was unlikely.

I dismissed the coffee as irrelevant and pulled open my wardrobe. It took me only moments to dress for the day, pulling out my standard Cerberus uniform. I tugged at the hips, trying to get it to lay flat, but there was extra room in the suit today. I shrugged it off: I must've done something when I washed it last.

I finally settled myself at my desk, ready to tackle the final mission report for Korlus. I had written a preliminary, of course, to make sure I didn't forget any details, but I still needed to make sure all team accounts of the mission matched before composing the full report. Naturally, I would also need to update Garrus' status on the mission as well.

"Emails...nothing pressing. Budget and inventory...looking good," I murmured to myself as I worked. "Team status...just fixed and mission reports...all done. Everything looks, well, perfect."

I leaned back in my chair, and stared at the green door controls right in front of me. _I should go out there. Talk to Shepard._

_I really don't want to._

With a sigh, I reached for my coffee. Then, like in slow motion, I could see that I'd misjudged the distance, catching the rim of the cup with my finger and sending the coffee crashing to the side. Hot caramel colored liquid splashed out, coating the electronics on my desk before spilling onto me as well. I looked in disgust at where it was already staining the sleeves of my uniform, and I froze.

The hands in front of me were my own, but they were _un-gloved, smaller, shaking. Blood dribbled from my nose, and I caught it hurriedly, wiping it on my black pants where it couldn't be seen—the badge of my shame. Father wiped at his decorously tailored sleeves and shook out a datapad, face twisted with distaste._

"_Your tutors assured me that your fine control on your biotics was getting better," he intoned, cold, expressionless, "but you can't even move a cup of coffee without spilling it all over me."_

"_It was an accident, a..."_

"_A mistake," Father interrupted me. I paled. I knew very well what mistakes were worth._

"_I've been training all day. I'm just tired. If I could try again tomorrow..." I protested, clenching my hands by my sides to stop the shaking._

_Father stepped out from behind his desk and moved over to the window where he turned his shoulder to me and left me looking only at the dark gray expanse of his back. I dropped my eyes to the floor._

"_Tomorrow is not good enough," Father finally said. "Perhaps you just do not have enough stamina. You'll go to the lab tomorrow, and we'll run some tests."_

_I dug my fingernails even further into my palms, fighting to calm the panicked galloping of my heart._

"_Please, Father," I entreated, trying to keep my voice calm and steady. There was nothing Father disliked more than whining. "I'll be better."_

_He turned from the window and stared at me for a long time before walking up to me. He slowly reached out and gripped my chin, pulling my face up to look at him. He had my eyes, or, well, I had his. I always thought I might find in them some glimmer of affection, some promise that I wasn't just a project. I told myself that one day he might, heaven forbid, actually love me._

_I was always wrong. His eyes held nothing but ambition and disappointment._

"_Never look down in a conversation," Father said. "It lets the other person win."_

_I tried to nod that I understood, but he still held my chin fast, tightening his grip until it hurt._

"_Perhaps you're simply distracted. You'll not see that friend of yours, Niket, until the next round of evaluations is over. They're in three days, Miranda," he said, dropping his hand; its removal left that part of my jaw feeling cold and heavy. Father turned his back on me once more: a dismissal. "Do not disappoint me."_

"_Of course, Father," I answered._

My hands kept shaking.

"Miss Lawson," a familiar voice sounded next to me. "Miss Lawson, are you alright?"

I looked into pale eyes framed by styled, gray hair. Dr. Chakwas was kneeling by my desk chair, her hand on my knee to get my attention. Her eyes skimmed warily over the mess of my desk before coming back to rest on me with concern.

"I...apologize, doctor," I replied with a polite smile, re-crossing my legs to remove her hand from my knee. "I must have gotten lost in my thoughts. Is there something I can do for you?"

I may have been covered in coffee and my hands still trembling, but when Chakwas straightened from her crouch, her face still noticeably skeptical, I never dropped my gaze from hers. A worried crease remained between Chakwas' brows, but she took a step back.

"I came to talk to you about some worrying results," Chakwas began. I cocked my head with interest. "They're yours."

"Excuse me?" I said. Worrying medical results for me? That wasn't possible. _Breathe, Miranda. You're an adult now. He's not here. Everything is fine. _

"I noticed a red flag during your latest post-mission evaluation. At the time, I decided to wait a few days, see if it was just an abnormality," Chakwas explained. "But omni scans of you yesterday did not convince me otherwise."

"Well, what is it?" I demanded.

"Miss Lawson, you've lost a worrying amount of weight in just two weeks. Now, I'm sure you don't need me to remind you of the dangers to biotics that don't keep up with their appropriate daily caloric intake," Chakwas admonished.

"There must be a mistake," I argued, cutting her short. Of course I'd been eating. I ate small amounts at a time, naturally, but I would never be so careless as to...

"Why don't we go to the medbay? I can get full body scans and double check your biotics. But you'll need to start eating," Chakwas asserted, but then her voice softened. "If there's something wrong, you can always talk to me. Or the Cerberus-provided Miss Chambers. But if things don't change I cannot in good conscience give you medical clearance for the next mission. I'll be forced to tell the commander..."

"Tell me what?" Shepard asked, entering the room with her uncanny ability to be exactly where I didn't want her to be. Shepard took in the odd scene of my coffee ruined desk and quirked an eyebrow. "Well, if you didn't like my coffee, Lawson, all you had to do was say so."

"Commander," I greeted her, slipping easily into my usual line, "What can I do for you?"

Shepard peered around the room slowly, like she was checking to see if she'd been caught on some reality TV show, until her eyes came back to rest on the two of us. I gave her an unamused stare, but I suppose I couldn't blame her for the odd response. We did look a bit squirrely.

"Lawson, tell me what?" Shepard repeated herself.

"There is...an anomaly in my medical scans," I informed her, cool, collected. I stood from my chair in what I hoped was my usual graceful manner. "Now, if you would allow me to clean myself up, I was just about to meet Dr. Chakwas in the medbay."

Chakwas nodded and turned for the door, but, naturally, Shepard did not. I breezed towards the bathroom and unzipped the top of my suit, turning slightly in the doorframe.

"Unless you plan to watch, I don't need help getting undressed, Shepard," I said pointedly. Her face grew red quickly—I loved how easy she was to blush—but she stubbornly turned her back and moved to wait by my desk.

I darted as quickly as I dared into the restroom, and then hit the door controls for it to slide shut behind me. I sank heavily against the door and dropped my head into my hands because for this moment—and this moment only—I was allowed to feel like the universe was falling apart. I was overwhelmed: stress, guilt, flashbacks. I should have known they would come back, should have known that the warning signs around Oriana would bring _his_ face back into my dreams.

At least this flashback had been useful for one thing: a reminder that I had at least one person I trusted to help me with the threat to Oriana. The warning signs may not have been definitive, but I would rather be safe when it came to my sister. She would need to be moved, and I could ask Niket to help me.

And so I wrenched my moment of weakness to an abrupt end and pulled up my omni-tool, sending a quick message to Niket. I would have to explain more to him later, but, for now, it would have to do. Then I stepped up to the sink and splashed the water on my face. I hadn't cried—I had always refused any tears to fall because of Father—but my eyes had gotten rather red.

I rubbed some color back into my face, stripped quickly out of my ruined suit and into something clean, and then walked back into my room to see Shepard wiping down my desk chair with a cloth. She had also cleaned up as much of my desk as she could, though I wondered at how operational my electronics were going to be. I supposed it was at least fortunate this had happened when I could easily walk to a store to replace them. However, I was strangely touched by her effort.

Shepard glanced up at me. "I thought we were going to stop lying to each other."

"It's not lying. It's wishing to have privacy when it comes to my medical records," I replied. She eyed me boldly, but there was no sign of her usual animosity towards me; it seemed she was trying to take what she'd said last night seriously. I sighed in defeat. "Just come to the medbay with me. If there's something to tell, you would have to be informed anyway."

"That sounds fine. Plus I still need to get scans done to check my latest medical upgrade," Shepard said casually. I looked at her in surprise. "What? I do read your memos."

That was news, actually. I thought she'd just been deleting them. Good to know she was actually just ignoring my requests instead of not reading them.

We made it across the mess to the medbay without encountering anyone, which was lucky because I was in a foul mood for conversation. I tried desperately not to think of how dry my mouth had gone, how I couldn't keep my finger from twirling anxiously in the extra fabric of my suit. _Relax, Miranda. They're just non-invasive scans. Not like...not like before._

Shepard was watching me closely, devoid of any of the hostility I was expecting from her waking up in my room this morning. She even went so far as to reach out to touch my shoulder when I hesitated to lie down on the scanner, though she pulled it away at the last moment. I tried not to think too much of it as Chakwas started the machine, which, unfortunately, confirmed everything the doctor suspected.

"It's not too severe at the moment, but I imagine your biotics to be weakened," Chakwas reported brusquely.

"Alright," I said tightly. I gripped the edge of the bed, fighting against the urge to flinch: _Mistake. I'll be better. _"I'll be sure to eat more and be more careful in the future." _Tomorrow is not good enough_.

My face never moved a muscle.

"If…" Chakwas tried.

"I'm fine," I snapped, hopping off the scanner table. I nodded thanks to Chakwas in an attempt at civility and walked briskly towards the door. Shepard took my place on the scanner table, and though I could feel her eyes following me hotly through the door, she didn't follow.

XXX

"I was hoping I could convince you to come with me to the cargo bay," Shepard stated, leaning in the doorway of my office some time later.

"I'm not really up for a training session today," I replied curtly.

"Not that. I was hoping we'd take care of that krogan tube. Docked, instead of out in open space," Shepard answered. I set the datapad I was reading down and looked into her eyes.

"You want to open it?" I asked.

Shepard shrugged noncommittally before considering me. "Preferably not alone?"

_Alone._ I forced myself not to drop her eyes, but couldn't get over that feeling of being so completely vulnerable, especially when it came to Shepard. She gave that weak shrug again, and I melted, the anger and frustration flowing out of my shoulders. I stood from my chair and followed Shepard onto the elevator, where we stood stiffly in silence as the elevator shuddered downwards.

"So about last night…"

"There's nothing to talk about," I cut her off brusquely, knowing she referred to her forceful invitation into my room and not her apology at the restaurant.

"I mean, it's all a bit fuzzy, but I…" Shepard continued anyway. I could see her blushing again even in the dim lighting. "I shouldn't have."

"I said it was nothing," I repeated. "It's forgotten."

I watched her from the corner of my eyes and saw Shepard watching me with curiosity, her face soft and open. Maybe for a normal person that would have been a good thing, but on Shepard, it just made me wary. The air was charged between us, almost to the point of making me feel awkward, so when the elevator doors opened, we both let out a sigh of relief.

_This was so much easier when she only scowled at me. _

The walk from the elevator was thankfully a brisk one, and soon we both stood warily looking at the krogan in a bottle.

"Are you absolutely sure you want to open it?" I asked. "We're not really sure how he'll react to us."

"Leaving him in there is essentially sentencing him to die. Or sending him to a life of being tested by Cerberus," Shepard replied. She fixed me with her gaze. "It's not his fault he was created by a madman."

I kept my eyes forward, face blank.

"Damn, Garrus is going to kill me for doing this without him," Shepard said and laughed. I chuckled too, imagining Garrus complaining about it for the next week while he was cooped up in his hospital bed. Shepard's eyebrows quirked up.

"I didn't know you knew how to laugh," she observed with warmth. "It sounds nice."

An unexpected rush of affection sprang up in my chest, so easily was she able to endear herself to me. I took a step away.

"I think it's less about him being present and more about Garrus being worried that you let a potentially unstable krogan loose on the ship," I said, pointedly sidestepping her comment. _Goddamn it. All I had to do was say thank you._

"Buzzkill," Shepard said with a scowl. _And back to normal. Great,_ I thought scathingly. "Let's do this."

The krogan stood inert inside the glass tubing, but I could see minute movements caused by the circulation of the nutrient liquid the container was filled with. He was, like all krogan, large, and I estimated the krogan was at least a foot or more taller than me. He had tan scales interspersed with rosette scales covering the bottom of his face and neck, which I knew would continue down under the armor to cover the softer parts of his body. The visible crest of his head, which would meld and spread across his entire backside, was covered with a tougher mass of grey. Grand muscles were hinted at underneath the large silver plates of armor.

_The krogan does seem rather impressive. _But as soon as that thought crossed my mind, a knot formed in my stomach, thinking of whether or not the krogan could sense us looking at him. A super soldier he had been grown to be, but floating there he maintained a sense of vulnerability. _Is that what I looked like? Am I standing like Father stood, admiring his...creation? _I fought the growing nausea clawing at my throat.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Shepard's hand twitch like she wanted to reach out and comfort me—_was I that obvious?_—but then the movement was gone, and her hand hung still by her side. She gave a quick glance at me before finally stepping up to the pod controls.

"Shepard," EDI's mechanical voice sounded in the cargo hold, "are you certain you want to do this?"

"Yes," Shepard confirmed, "let's open it up."

She punched in the authorization code Okeer had left to us, and the container activated immediately, the side panels hissing as it released the pressure and started draining the liquid out. The pod tipped forward, and the krogan's knees bent down, bearing his weight for the first time. The clear front was the last to go, popping open with a dramatic flourish to deposit the krogan outside of its confines for the first time.

He hacked out the rest of the liquid from his lungs, and then finally focused on me and Shepard. Reptilian eyes the vivid color of a blue giant blinked at us, something I'd never before seen on a krogan. For a split second I thought things might remain civil, but then he grimaced and thunderously charged forward.

Shepard was caught slightly off guard, and my heart leapt violently into my throat. I threw a stasis field at the krogan, but, like Chakwas had so irritatingly pointed out, my biotics were weakened. The krogan shook the stasis off and pinned Shepard by the throat up against the wall. She gasped at the impact.

"Shepard!" I called, reaching for my gun, but she held out a hand to calm me.

"Alright," Shepard gritted out. A smile—maybe more of a grimace—pulled back the corners of her mouth, and Shepard managed to look murderous and inviting at the same time. She gained her breath back then easily activated her biotics and put the krogan in the stasis that I'd failed. "First lesson outside of the tank: when dealing with a biotic, always pin their arms. Second lesson: Fighting me is usually a bad idea. Unless you have a really big ass gun. Even then it's more like fifty/fifty."

Shepard wiggled out from his stiff grasp, and moved over to my side. I took a step closer to her as well, relieved she was okay. I may also have done a quick scan with my omni-tool behind her back to confirm.

"Alright, I'm going to let you out of this, and we're gonna talk. You attack again, and I kill you, got it?"

She waited until she received some sort of eye movement that indicated he agreed, then dropped the field. I eyed him skeptically while his hands still clenched tense at his sides. Prudently, Shepard didn't move any closer.

"Name," the krogan gritted out, his voice still sounding vaguely watery. He worked his jaw, unused to moving it.

"I'm Commander Shepard," she introduced herself, then motioned to me, "and this is my second-in-command, Miranda Lawson."

The krogan's head rocked side to side, still watching us with violence."Not yours, mine," he panted, his eyes blinking quickly in obvious discomfort.

I sympathized with how disorienting this must be for the krogan. Grown by my father until my body reached that of a three year old's—Father wasn't one for infant care—I knew distinctly what it felt like to be released into a world where I didn't even know my own name, where my mind struggled to fit my body. Though this krogan was made by design, just like me, I couldn't decide whether his situation was better or worse. I had at least been given a childhood, short though it was, where I'd been allowed a modicum of leeway when it came to failure. For this 'perfect' soldier, failure would likely be met with death. All anyone would see is a full grown krogan charging at them with a gun.

The krogan barely responded to our continued silence—Okeer hadn't given us a name—then I watched as his eyes darted back and forth, like he was reading the pages of a book that only he could see.

"I am Grunt," he declared, looking down at Shepard and barely sparing a glance for me. "You came for Okeer, the one who made me. Instead, you got me, but you do not fight me."

Grunt never asked an actual question, but it was obvious that our behavior confused him. Electric blue eyes now watched our every movement.

"I'd prefer to save my fighting for my enemies," Shepard stated, taking the tiniest step towards him.

The seven foot tall krogan lumbered in close to Shepard again, but he wasn't attacking, and the commander didn't flinch. In fact, she broke out into another cocky smirk that the krogan narrowed his eyes at. Grunt leaned forward with his head cocked and gave a sniff.

"You are small, a human. What enemy would find you worth fighting?" he asked.

"You would be surprised," I said dryly. The better question was who _didn't _want to fight us.

"There's plenty, don't worry about that. And I am small," Shepard chuckled. I looked at her in wonder. The two of them were smiling away at each other, and I had no idea how this 'bonding' had even taken place. "Maybe that's why I could use a warrior as big as you to fight with me," Shepard continued.

"I am pure krogan," Grunt explained, baring his teeth proudly.

"Great. You're the perfect krogan. She's the perfect human," Shepard groaned playfully pointing at me. "Now you two can make a club."

Grunt trompped suddenly over to me. I stayed put, thinking he would just lean in and sniff me like he did with Shepard, but instead I had to hurriedly block the huge fist that Grunt slammed down in an overhead swing. The quick activation of my biotics around my arm plus my already enhanced strength stopped the blow, but I still staggered under the force. Grunt threw another punch and I dodged, not quite sure why Shepard wasn't doing anything about a crazy krogan attacking me.

I blocked another right hook, and this time I was pushed right into Shepard, whose hands settled easily on my hips to steady me.

"Alright, enough playing," Shepard said, her voice right next to my ear and sending a shiver down my back. _Playing? That was playing?_ "No manhandling my XO."

I stepped away quickly from Shepard's almost possessive hold on my waist, even as a small pang of regret shot through me at the loss of her warmth.

"She doesn't seem any different," Grunt decided, still eyeing me curiously.

"How would you know?" I scoffed, maintaining as much dignity as I could after that spectacle. "I'm only the second human you've even met."

He leveled an austere stare at me. "I have memories from the tank," he explained shortly. For his sake, I hoped those memories were very extensive. He was going to need it.

"So will you fight with me?" Shepard finally voiced the question.

Grunt paused in consideration, eyes darting between Shepard and me.

"The tank gave me memories on how to fight, but never told me why," Grunt said. "I do not have a reason to fight, but you have enemies. I suppose fighting with you will have to do."

"It's settled then," Shepard confirmed. "I'm glad I don't have to kill you. Well, or drop you off on a random planet."

She threw out a hand to shake. Grunt inspected it, nostrils flaring, and his eyes got a faraway look. When, after a few seconds, Grunt gripped Shepard's hand in a handshake, my suspicions were confirmed: he was likely still sorting through the multitude of memories the tank gave him to find relevant information, like what a human handshake was. I almost envied him that encyclopedic knowledge. I had been a blank slate, my first memory being Father saying, "Excellent. We'll start the first round of tests in an hour." I shivered and then kicked my thoughts back into the present.

"We'll find you appropriate quarters, Grunt," I offered, mentally ticking off places that might work for such a large person.

He shook his head. "I will stay with the tank."

I looked around, disgruntled. There wasn't even a bed there, nothing in the room but the tank and a bunch of crates. Because it was a storage room. _Where would I even have put Okeer if we'd managed to save him?_ I glowered internally at the oversight.

"Then we'll leave you to get settled," Shepard said, herding me reluctantly towards the door. I pushed the matter of a bed out of my mind for now; I would have to figure how to fix it later.

Once outside the room, Shepard spoke to EDI about restricting the level for now, keeping the crew away from Grunt until everyone had a chance to adjust. I approved, of course: The krogan wasn't exactly joining the team under the most normal of circumstances.

When Shepard and I boarded the arriving elevator, a peaceful sense of accomplishment followed us, though it only took a few moments for that to fade away. Then the humming of the elevator began to feel almost unbearably loud as the metal box clicked steadily on its journey upwards. Shepard's finger tapped along with the mechanical rhythm, and I could almost see the thoughts crowding around Shepard's head.

"Did you have a tank?" Shepard blurted out her question into the silence of the elevator.

"I'm sorry?" I sputtered.

"You said you were engineered, right? Did you have a tank?" Shepard repeated, then paused thoughtfully. "Did I ever have a tank?"

"You didn't have a tank," I answered. "But, yes, I was grown in one for a period of time."

Shepard's eyes flickered to the ground before they came back up to meet mine. "You said you would tell me about being 'engineered to be perfect,'" Shepard remarked, letting her voice trail off into a question.

"I did," I agreed, though my stomach was already twisting into knots at the thought. I wondered at the sudden interest, if it was just something brought on by seeing Grunt or something else. "You also said you would tell me how you felt about being reconstructed."

Shepard grimaced with a slight wrinkle of her nose but eventually nodded. So I took a steadying breath and began to answer my part.

"My father designed me from his own DNA, modifying his Y chromosome to be an X so I would be a female. In fact, there were several specimens designed at the same time, toying with different combinations to make sure Father would get what he wanted. I'm unsure how many he grew, but I was the only one of the batch that Father kept," I started, forcing my voice to be stoic, clinical. "I continued to undergo testing throughout my childhood where anything my father found to be wanting was surgically corrected, though apparently nothing was so far outside parameters for him to restart. The most severe of these was the implantation of biotic nodules followed by my biotic implant, since the mechanics of biotic use were discovered after my creation. All of that was supplemented with the best tutors he could buy, and here I am."

I finished my monologue to see Shepard looking at me in horror, her mouth twisted up in a way I had missed considering I'd avoided looking at her during my explanation. I would admit, however, that I didn't think my modifications warranted such disgust, and I instinctively crossed my arms over my chest.

"He...surgically _corrected_ you?" Shepard repeated with a dangerous glint in her eyes. My eyes snapped to hers, and I realized the look hadn't been about me but about my father.

"Sometimes the ends can justify the means," I grudgingly defended. Much as I despised what my father had done to me, I appreciated my skills. My feelings on the matter were...complicated.

"Not very often. Usually that's just people trying to justify the bad things they've done," Shepard scoffed. "I'm guessing the Illusive Man approves of these modifications?"

"Naturally," I replied, quirking an eyebrow as how her mind had transitioned from 'bad things' straight to the Illusive Man. "Are you suggesting for me to refuse to use my abilities out of spite?"

"I suppose not," she muttered, shifting back onto her other leg and crossing her arms. "Is that what you did to me? Those same procedures?"

"No!" I burst out. It was my turn to be horrified now. I would never, _never_...well. I tried to convince myself that I wouldn't have done some of those same things to her given the opportunity, but it sounded false even in my own head. Now that I had spent time with Shepard I couldn't imagine putting her through something like that, but at the beginning? I would have done almost anything to make sure she stayed alive and was the person she was supposed to be. In fact there were parts of her reconstruction that, if she knew about them, I knew Shepard would wholly disapprove of.

There were differences, though, and not just in the techniques I had used. I had actually cared about Shepard's pain, for example, and until the moment she was prematurely woken up, I made sure she never felt a thing.

"Yours was a different situation," I continued finally, having managed to calm myself down. Shepard looked surprised at my outburst, and I internally cringed. It had revealed more of my emotions on my engineering than I had meant to let slip. "While I was created from the very beginning, we built you with what remains we had left. No tank necessary."

Silence fell, but I knew without asking that Shepard was thinking of how to answer her part of the discussion: how she felt about being brought back. She chewed on her lip for a second and then straightened to face me straight on again.

"Am I still human?" Shepard asked. I blinked at her, surprised at the question and surprised that she had been wondering that this whole time. I had thought it fairly obvious.

"Of course you are," I asserted. "If you were anything but yourself, I would have failed."

"And we wouldn't want that," Shepard remarked dryly. "Though you did call me your greatest mistake yet."

My stomach twisted at the reminder of our argument after Bekenstein. She had goaded me, but I willingly snapped up the bait.

"I shouldn't have said that," I admitted. It wasn't exactly an apology; I knew I should follow it up with more, but my mouth stayed proudly shut.

Shepard gave a nod, her chin dipping down just the tiniest amount.

"Did you…" I began, but my words faltered just slightly. I steeled myself and tried again, "Did you not want to be brought back?"

"I was dead. I'm sure I didn't want much of anything," Shepard stated bluntly. I bit my lip to keep from laughing at the dry humor, but I'm sure she didn't notice as her eyes were glued to the elevator wall.

"So then you're glad to be back?" I pushed to confirm, watching as the elevator indicated we were almost at our destination, as well as the end of our conversation.

Shepard's eyes locked back onto mine, their beautiful emerald color glittering in the neon lights of the elevator panels. She seemed to consider her answer carefully, never breaking her gaze.

"I'm not upset that I'm alive," she said. "Though I wish I hadn't been brought back by you."

Her words slipped down and landed with perfect precision, causing my emotions to claw at my chest and wrap themselves around my throat until any reply I could come up with was choked out of me. I should have expected the answer, of course—and she hadn't really said it unkindly—but that didn't prevent the hurt that burned through my trachea and seeped into my lungs. My heart warred with my brain, which was telling those fickle emotions to _shut the bloody hell up. You know she hates Cerberus. Of course she wishes it were someone else._

I was lucky the elevator chose that moment to open its doors, pulling Shepard's attention away from me and whatever response I was apparently not going to say. Years of practice thankfully held my face perfectly into place; from the very beginning I had promised myself that she would never see that she hurt me, and I wasn't about to start now.

Shepard had her hand over the door to keep it from closing and turned back with a suddenness that finally drew me from my thoughts, surprising me when she cocked her head in expectation.

"Are you coming?"

The blue light of the galaxy map shone past the elevator door, and I furrowed my brow when Shepard proceeded past the map and to the airlock. I hurried up behind her.

"Where are we going?"

Shepard eyed me with a twist of her mouth. "We're going to say goodbye to Garrus before the ship leaves tomorrow morning."

She watched me with raised eyebrows like her statement was the most obvious thing in the world, like she hadn't firmly denied any sort of friendship last night. Like it was normal for her to invite me anywhere but a battlefield or a cargo hold.

"You _want_ me to go?" I asked, warily hopeful.

Shepard shrugged, and though my heart gave an unpleasant lurch, I was careful to keep my face schooled into casual indifference. "Garrus asked for you."

_Oh. Well I suppose that's nice. _

XXX

Garrus

I stabbed the button to call a nurse for the millionth time, calling for an extra blanket. I rearranged the four blankets already on my lap, and, when it arrived, settled the new blanket around my shoulders before settling back on the bed.

I wiggled about, grunting when I couldn't find a good position. I fluffed my pillows. I tried putting an extra pillow behind my back, but the pillow was too big and made my back bow out. Next, I tested having a pillow behind my neck. _Spirits, why is this so uncomfortable?_

I lobbed the pillow to the right where it hit the window, tinted to block the eternal sunshine of the Citadel, and immediately started wheezing.

"Mr. Vakarian, you have been warned against unnecessary movement," a voice sounded from speaker next to the call button, "unless you wish to stay longer than a week, I suggest you follow doctor's orders."

I sneered at the red light blinking next to the speaker. The nurse didn't speak again.

Just when I was about to go crazy from boredom, my omni-tool chirped from the side table. I grabbed it quickly to hit answer, the orange viewing screen blinked into existence, and I was met with the face of my father.

"Garrus," he greeted me.

"Dad!" I cried, trying to angle the screen so it wouldn't show the hospital monitors I was hooked up to. "This is...unexpected."

Dad narrowed his eyes at me, and his mandibles flared. "You realize that, since you refused every marriage your mother and I tried to set up for you, I remain your next of kin. Hospitals tend to give me a call when you appear unconscious and injured in their ward."

"Ah, yes, that," I stammered awkwardly. "I'm fine really. How's Mom?"

Dad looked away, mandibles dropping slightly. "Much of the same," he said. He lifted his chin to stare directly at me, and guilt settled thickly in my throat. "Look, Garrus, I thought, after that mess with the 'contract work' you were doing, you would come back home, help with your family."

"Something came up. I've got new work. It's important, and you always said…"

"Do things right, or not at all. I remember," Dad broke in. He sighed. "It's Shepard isn't it? You're with her."

"Yes," I confirmed, wary of giving actual details.

"When I heard she was back...I should've known," Dad mused, the blue bill of his mouth pressing down while he thought. "Listen, son, I know I've pressured you to make a good match. A human in the family isn't exactly what I want, but we could make it work. You could do worse than Shepard, and if marrying her will get you to come home…"

I coughed, beating gently on my chest to try and clear it, completely blindsided by the offer. The door to my room clicked open to reveal the woman in question, running her fingers through her unruly auburn hair, followed by Miranda. I flared my mandibles in panic.

"W-what? I am not in love with Shepard," I sputtered. Shepard looked up with wide eyes from where she was settling into a chair next to Miranda, who feigned disinterest by pulling out a datapad (_Does she just carry those everywhere?_). "Where did you even get that idea?"

Dad frowned and looked off camera before lowly growling, "Solana."

"My sister has an overactive imagination," I scoffed. Leave it to my sister to come up with something wholly ridiculous.

There was a commotion off camera, then the whole screen was taken up by a close shot of my sister's distinct rose colored eyes. She shuffled back to a more appropriate distance, so I could see her entire silver and blue face, while effectively kicking my father out of the shot.

"It's not exactly a wild assumption," Solana retorted, her frontal plates drawing down close around her eyes in indignation. "She's all you talk about."

Shepard directed an insufferable smirk at me, and I rolled my eyes.

"Well, if you're looking to marry a Vakarian to her, you better get down here yourself, Solana," I quipped. "Shepard's type is tall, dark, and decidedly female."

Solana's eye twitched as she searched for a comeback, but Shepard was already scrambling up noisily to join me in the camera.

"We're getting married, Solana?" Shepard carolled. "And here I thought you didn't like me. I believe your exact words were 'scrawny' and 'uncouth.'"

Miranda snorted, quickly clapping a hand over her mouth to stop it. Shepard mock glared at her.

Unfortunately, Solana never had the chance to answer as my father's grave face took over the screen again.

"I see you have things to take care of," Dad said, directing a nod to Shepard. That feeling of guilt came rushing back. After all, Dad had had my whole lifetime to perfect that tone on me. I tried to brush it off. There was nothing I could do for Mother, even if I did go back. "We'll leave you be."

"Hey," I said hurriedly to stop him from shutting off the comm. "Thanks for calling, Dad."

"I'll hopefully hear from you again soon, Son," he replied, and the screen went dark. And if that didn't sound like a threat towards Shepard, I didn't know what would.

I shut down the projection on my omni-tool and watched as Shepard hopped down from the bed, and settled right back into the chair next to Miranda without even sparing a glance for the other chairs in the room,. Shepard probably didn't even realize, but I thought I could see a little smile flicker just briefly on Miranda's face.

"Miranda," I greeted, "I'm glad you came."

"Garrus," Miranda replied steadily. Her wrist relaxed, and I could see she had been reading _After Dark Fashions_. "I'm surprised you invited me."

"Yes, well, otherwise I wasn't going to get to thank you. You haven't come by," I said.

"I did. Once. You were asleep," Miranda said stiffly.

"She's also being annoyingly humble about the whole thing," Shepard broke it, and Miranda laughed. I was shocked to see Shepard's face soften at the sound.

"I'm sorry," Miranda said to Shepard's stare. "I just don't think I've ever heard anyone call me humble."

"Well, thank you anyway," I acknowledged. Miranda gave a small nod of her head, her piercing stare still leaving with me with vague discomfort, even after a month of working with her.

"Now," Shepard exclaimed, clapping her hands and rubbing them together in anticipation. "Who's up for a friendly game of Quasar?"

"Shepard, you do realize you don't play Quasar against an opponent?" Miranda pointed out.

"Buzzkill," Shepard accused, though I think it was playfully. Sometimes you just couldn't tell with her.

"A few rounds of Skyllian-five then," I offered, and Shepard grinned gleefully. I turned to Miranda. "Just don't let her try to convince you that she's never played before. Ruthless, that one is."

_A few hours later_…

"And you called me ruthless," Shepard grumbled, frowning at Miranda who had just cleaned the both of us out. Miranda continued to lightly perch on her chair, not even gloating in her victory. That woman had one hell of a poker face.

"I'm good at just about anything I set my mind to," Miranda claimed. Shepard made a face at the side of Miranda's head, and I had to stifle my laughter.

"Beginner's luck," Shepard muttered, and Miranda's steel blue gaze locked onto her with a raised eyebrow.

"I assure you: I'm no beginner, Shepard," Miranda said smoothly. Shepard blushed, and _oh Spirits no. You idiot. _

"Well," Miranda said, standing from her chair and stretching out her limbs while Shepard's eyes followed her movements closely. "It's late, and I should turn in."

Miranda looked like she was about to counsel Shepard to do the same but thought better of it at the last moment. Then she turned towards me one last time, hesitantly.

"Thank you for inviting me, Garrus," she said. The smile I gave was just as tentative as her thanks, the both of us uncertain where we stood with the other, but it was a start. Miranda left the room, and Shepard's gaze trailed after her.

"Quit making that face at me," Shepard said.

"I'm not making a face," I replied. Shepard leaned forward slightly and glared at me pointedly. "Alright, I'm making a face."

"I don't want to talk about it," she asserted with a surly grimace.

"You finally sat down and talked to her," I stated, looking to confirm my suspicions.

"I may have accidentally crossed paths with her last night," Shepard admitted. "I apologized for some of my behavior."

"Well, what did she say?" I asked, trying to muffle some of my excitement. It might be nice to lose some of the tension on the ship.

"She answered some questions I had. There was one moment when I thought she might, you know, apologize back, but she didn't…" Shepard trailed off before finishing, "Anyway, she can be rather opaque and hard to read."

"Talk about the pot calling the kettle black," I replied, applauding myself for getting the human expression right. _Which, really, makes no sense. Pots and kettles are silver. Humans: I'll never understand them. _

"Anyway," Shepard said, shaking off what was obviously an uncomfortable discussion for her. "I didn't want to talk about my problems. I was actually worried about _you_."

I forced myself not to grimace. I knew exactly where she was going with this: my family.

"Look, I know you're planning on coming back to the _Normandy_ in a week, but I didn't exactly give you a lot of options when you joined me. I really just assumed you wanted to be there. So, if you'd rather go be with your family, your mother…"

"Shepard," I cut her off. "You know I would have told you if I wanted to leave."

"Yeah. Thing is, I never even asked you why you went off to Omega instead of just going home when I died. Or even back to C-Sec," Shepard continued.

"I wanted to be where I could do the most good," I tried to explain, though guilt was still ringing in my chest, trying to get my attention—reminding me of my mother that I couldn't help and my team on Omega that I'd gotten killed. I paused to think over my next words before continuing softly, "I'm worthless sitting by her bedside; she doesn't even recognize me. At least I can be doing something worthwhile."

Shepard looked at me with a curiously sharp gaze before standing abruptly and pacing shortly at the end of my bed.

"Is Cerberus paying you a salary for this?" she asked, agitatedly whipping about to face me again.

"Not that I've noticed," I joked. "I'm here for you, Shepard. And to help."

Shepard frowned lightly at that, but let it go, patting her palm contemplatively against her thigh before turning to gather her jacket from where she had thrown it across the chair.

"I'll have to see if I can fix that," Shepard said coming to the side of my bed. She gave a playful punch to my shoulder, and I swiped it away, the sudden movement causing me to start coughing again. Shepard grinned, malicious creature that she was. "I'd better get going. Try to heal fast, and we'll see you in a week."

Shepard departed the room quickly, giving me a jaunty wave on her way through the doorframe, and I collapsed back against my pillows, rubbing at my chest.

"Mr. Vakarian, if I have to warn you again…" the nurse's voice squawked over the speaker by my bed again.

"It wasn't even my fault this time!" I grumbled in protest. I rolled over to my side and tried to snuggle down into the hospital bed. It was going to be a long week.

* * *

**Woah, what? A whole week without Garrus? How is that even going to work? _It will, I promise_.**

**I love that writing in 1st person POV gives me the ability to really go into the backgrounds of Miranda and Garrus, and I hope everyone enjoys my interpretations (which are based, as much as possible, in the canon background we were given). I am, however, delving into some potentially sensitive subjects (Miranda's abuse, Garrus' sick mother). I've tried to do enough research into these things to make them seem accurate, but I am open to opinions on whether I've given them appropriate justice.**

**Also, I commissioned a portrait to be done of my Shepard! There's a link to it on my profile if anyone is interested! It links to my Tumblr, and anyone is welcome to contact me on there as well. My url is muffledwalnut. **

**Thank you everyone for reading! **


	15. Those Betrayed

**Ch. 15: Those Betrayed**

Miranda

I flipped the folding cot over and kneeled beside it, searching for the tag attached to the bottom.

"Safely holds 100 kilograms," I read from the small text and sighed, pushing the cot away from me so I could stand again. Then I shoved it back into the little supply closet. _Bloody useless. I should have found something while we were still on the Citadel._

As it was, we were approaching the prison ship where Jack was being held, and I still hadn't found an appropriate sleeping situation for our new krogan crew member. Everything on board was simply not made to handle his weight which, if I had to guess, was somewhere around 160 kilos. Grunt had been sleeping on the metal floor, and though he seemed fine with it, the fact that I'd found nothing better irritated me.

With Plan A (the plan where I didn't completely forget to have accommodations for a krogan prepared) and Plan B (the plan where one of the rollaway beds would work) both failures, it was time to turn to Plan C. I started with the supply closet in the crew quarters. There were four pillows and blankets in there, so I took those before heading to my own closet, pulling the extra pillow and blanket that were stashed there.

An alert on my omni-tool pulled my attention: another report from the contact keeping an eye on Oriana. While the reminder of my cherished, sheltered sister usually cheered me up, the looming threat seemingly inching ever closer to her only served to foul my mood even further.

I stomped over to the medbay, remembering that I had ordered a surplus on almost everything in there, while my current collection of pillows and blankets floated biotically behind me. Dr. Chakwas was mercifully away, and I pilfered freely from the medbay stores, adding the new items to the floating conglomeration before absconding from the medbay.

"Taking the 'pillow queen' thing to the next level, Lawson?"

I startled at Shepard's voice as she stepped through the doorway of my empty office, and my face fell into a wry grin as I watched her take in the strange scene before her.

"It's not nice to make assumptions," I said, daring to raise an eyebrow as my bad mood slipped away. "Though perhaps I should be flattered you were thinking of me at all."

Shepard flushed all the way to her hairline, just like I knew she would, and I worked to hide my satisfied smile.

"Do I want to know?" Shepard asked, directing her eyes to the pillows and blankets still floating behind me.

If it hadn't been against every bit of my training in etiquette, I would have shrugged, mimicking Shepard's infamous gesture. Instead, I allowed my mouth to twist slightly as I shook my head.

"Just trying to give Grunt something decent to sleep on for the next few days," I admitted.

"Oh," Shepard replied, nervously turning over in her hands what I recognized as my recently broken alarm clock. "I probably should have thought of that."

"I had it handled; I would have alerted you otherwise," I assured her. She offered one of her small smiles that were still so rare as to be treasured right as my omni-tool beeped to alert me that we were drawing closer to our destination.

"Why do you have my alarm clock?" I asked Shepard as I breezed through the doorway of my room. I dropped my mountain of bedding in a corner to be taken care of later, and then fell into step next to Shepard as she led us in the opposite direction.

Shepard shrugged as we moved into the elevator. "I thought I'd fix it."

I stared at her. "Don't bother; I'll just buy a new one. That's already in several pieces."

"It'll give me a reason to pull out the tools I bought for those ship models. That way you can't complain about me buying them anymore," Shepard bantered lightly.

"I just don't see how many tiny screwdrivers you could possibly need," I retorted, though more out of habit than actual annoyance. She now had her personal money for that sort of thing.

"Different parts require different sizes. Besides, Garrus used one to fix a panel last week, so they paid for themselves, really," she quipped.

"Well, if you're out of models and want to fix that, then be my guest," I finally said. I tried to sound unaffected, but a small pang of discontent shot through my chest at the thought of me throwing my clock across the room again after she'd fixed it for me (though it wasn't really _for_ me, I made sure to remind myself). Maybe I could just start biotically shooting my pillow across the room instead. I would miss that satisfying crack against the wall, though.

When Shepard smirked at my words, a pleasant warmth effused through my chest, and I shook my head lightly to myself, hiding my own smile.

The elevator reached the second floor, we disembarked, and Shepard led us to the cockpit. Shepard's steps sounded heavier as we made the transition; they grew even and steady, like she subconsciously matched them to her heartbeat. With each step, her face hardened, her chin tipped up, and her shoulders straightened until we reached Joker where Shepard was in full commander mode. _Had she really been able to relax so much around me?_

"How's everything look, Flight Lieutenant?" Shepard asked, leaning on the back of Joker's chair with her forearm. He gave a scowl at the title.

"All good, Commander. Not close enough for docking codes yet, but we're within sight distance," Joker reported.

"Excellent," Shepard said.

I shifted feet, not sure what to expect next as Shepard remained leaning against the leather back of Joker's chair. Really, I wasn't entirely sure what I was doing up here, except that following Shepard had felt natural, something an XO would do with a commanding officer she reasonably got along with now. And Shepard hadn't discouraged it.

The commander heaved a heavy sigh. "You know, if just a few things had worked out differently, I could be on that prison ship," Shepard admitted casually. Her eyes flitted to mine. "When I was younger, during one of my' pranks', I accidentally shut off the environmental systems to two districts. Luckily managed to get them back on in time."

"Well, I'm sure you appreciate your freedom. I've heard nasty things about this prison ship."

"They're criminals, and they deserve it," Shepard scowled, her jaw tightening. "I would have deserved it, had I suffocated all those people."

"You do realize that we're recruiting one of those criminals, correct?" I chided.

Shepard turned and kept her face steadfastly directed to the open windows, even the side of her face hidden by the sweeping curtain of her hair.

"Maybe Jack's situation is more understandable to me, considering what was done to her," Shepard mused throatily. I knew in an instant what she was referring to.

"I received the same memo this morning, Shepard. I'll remind you: the Illusive Man said Jack was the result of a 'rogue cell,' not Cerberus," I defended.

"You do seem to have a lot of those," Shepard replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Convenient that they only seem to be rogue when others find out about them."

"Cerberus is invested in a great many projects," I replied, ignoring part of her insinuation. "It is impossible to have complete oversight while also maintaining anonymity between the cells. That's why certain reliable individuals are put in charge of each, though occasionally the trust in them turns out to be misplaced."

"It just seems like a pretty big coincidence that Jack is an experiment of Cerberus...and now we're here to 'recruit' Jack," Shepard said.

"Her origins notwithstanding, it was Jack's actions that put her in prison, not Cerberus. She's a criminal, and as you said, 'deserves it," I reminded her.

She finally turned to look at me again, her eyes heated with the discussion. "Yes, but she'll be helping us. It's for the greater good," she argued.

"Yet it's curious how much that phrase begins to sound like, 'the ends justify the means,'" I reasoned slowly. "A point which you held in so much disdain during our last conversation."

Shepard sighed, reaching up to tuck part of her hair behind her ear as she met my steady gaze. Though I thought she might be upset at the turn in the argument, Shepard just pursed her lips and rolled her eyes almost fondly.

"You just couldn't go _one_ day without an argument, could you, Lawson?" Shepard asked.

"Not when I know I'm going to win," I gloated, the corners of my mouth curling easily into a smirk.

"We have begun the final approach to the prison ship, Commander," EDI announced, interrupting any response Shepard might have made.

"That's our cue," I hummed, but Shepard motioned me to stop before I got too far out of the cockpit.

"You're not coming with me onto the _Purgatory_," Shepard admitted, and I blinked at her. _I'm _not _going? _"I'll be taking the shuttle, and Joker is on orders to keep the targeting systems locked on the prison ship. It should be just enough of a threat to keep them from trying anything, but I need someone here to give orders, just in case," Shepard explained.

"I am not going to blow up a ship with you on it," I contended, though I would admit to being slightly mollified that she was leaving me in charge.

"Don't argue, Lawson," Shepard snapped. "It's called a bluff."

I stared at her, pursing my lips. "You should only bluff if you're prepared to follow through."

Shepard waved off my concerns. "I trust your judgement. Just fire at the part of the ship that doesn't have me on it and give me time to get to the shuttle. It should be an unnecessary threat; they'd be stupid to try anything. You'll bring the ship in close only when Jack is ready to be transferred," she explained. "And if all else fails, you'll just rebuild me."

"I don't have the time or the resources to bring you back again, Shepard," I said to the back of her head as she turned to leave the area.

"Then I guess I'll just have to stay out of trouble," Shepard said, laughing at her own joke and giving a jaunty wave with the back of her hand.

I stayed in the cockpit and listened for ding of the elevator that told me the commander was off-deck. Then I waited for the team to put on their helmets so I could listen in and watch the mission on the displays in the cockpit. I paced the area, likely annoying Joker as we both watched the helmet monitors of the team to track their progress, but the mission was going surprisingly well, all things considered. Shepard muted me after only the second time I tried to offer suggestions, though, and so I was left with an hour of helpless watching and Joker's insufferable 'humor.'

However, Shepard did make good on Cerberus' money transfer passed easily, and the warden of the ship had a sedated Jack prepared for transport. I noticed some distress on Shepard's part during some of her conversations with the warden, but without her speaker on, I couldn't hear what they were saying. The rest of the team was also standing too far from her for their helmet recordings to be of any use, though their visuals of her stiff shoulders and clenched hands told me most of what I needed to know. I began to worry when some of her stats pushed into unsafe levels.

I made my way into the cargo bay right when the _Normandy_ fully shuddered into the docking clamps. The cargo ramp lowered slowly, revealing a tense Shepard standing with Grunt, Kasumi, and Jacob. I smirked at the rather awkward posture of Jacob as he tried to put distance between himself and Kasumi, but it really wasn't working. Grunt stood stoically to the side, his eyes warily sweeping the area. Shepard, however, seemed to be paying attention to nothing except the unconscious woman strapped to an oversized dolly.

I sneered, slightly appalled at the choice to chain a person to a dolly instead of using a more comfortable stretcher, but it did make the wheeling her onto the _Normandy_ much easier. Jack's head lolled to the side with the sedation, showing the empty biotic amp port at the base of her skull as well as the tattoos that wrapped around her entire bald head—which also seemingly continued to every other part of her very _visible_ body. Her skin showed an unsightly grey color from her extended stay in cryo storage, though it should fade within a few hours. Jack was small, she was skinny, and she looked so very _young_, even with the makeup that had remained freshly drawn along her eyes and lips.

"Admiring your handiwork?" Kasumi asked, her smooth accent sounding right next to my ear.

"Excuse me? Jack isn't…"

Kasumi cut me off with a laugh. "Not her, silly." Kasumi's eyes drifted pointedly over to where Shepard was bidding the warden goodbye and authorizing the cargo door to begin swinging shut. She flickered out of sight and then reappeared on my left side, trailing a finger down my spine. My pulse picked up even at such a small gesture from an unwanted thief, and I cursed my body for the response. Seems like it was betraying me in all sorts of ways lately.

Kasumi then leaned into my side, breathing in appreciatively while keeping her eyes on Shepard. "She was right. You _do _smell good."

I flushed just as I had that night when Shepard had drunkenly clung to me, my eyes widening at Kasumi's admission. A biting retort about eavesdropping in corners was on the tip of my tongue but faltered when I noticed Shepard's heated gaze on me and the thief. Though, the words fully dried in my mouth when I realized Shepard's eyes weren't just heated, they were glowing.

I hurried over to Shepard, Kasumi easily forgotten. "Commander, do you feel alright?" I asked tentatively. Shepard's eyes flickered behind me to where Kasumi was, no doubt, making her exit on the elevator before settling back on my face, and I wondered if my cheeks were still tinted red.

"I feel fine. Why?" Shepard replied in a sharp voice, now grasping the handles of Jack's dolly and wheeling our still unconscious guest to the elevator. Shepard caught sight of herself in the reflective walls of the elevator and startled. She rubbed at her eyes in an attempt to dispel the image, but the red glow stubbornly continued to show. "Oh. Shit. And here I thought the day might actually get better."

"I'll just take a look once we get to the medbay," I stated. Shepard's hands gripped tightly around the dolly handles, stubbornly keeping her gaze fixed on Jack as she worked her jaw in anxiety. I wanted to comfort her, assure her, but wavered on whether that would just make things worse.

With the silence of the elevator wrapped around us, I took a chance. "I'll fix it, Shepard," I murmured. Her eyes zeroed in on me, but I saw her shoulders relax an inch. "I'll fix it," I repeated, more confident.

Shepard gave a small nod, and it was okay because I wasn't really expecting a full answer. We arrived at the third deck, and Shepard pushed the dolly up and over the slight bump where the elevator met the actual floor before wheeling towards the medbay.

She turned slightly to look at me. "You messaged that you'd set something up?"

"Yes," I confirmed, pointing to the back bed where I'd prepared several shields to contain Jack to the area around her bed until we were sure she wouldn't try attacking. "Dr. Chakwas can do some minor scans to confirm her health and then monitor her waking from the sedation."

Dr. Chakwas acknowledged me from her desk chair as Shepard squinted at the mobile shield units. "These are going to use a lot of power. Why not just keep her strapped down?"

I could feel some of the blood drain from my face as I was assaulted with old memories of labs, my arms and legs bound along with an even worse strap holding across my neck: a result of my panicking one too many times during the 'correctional procedures.' My father had decided the restraints were necessary to make sure I didn't 'hurt myself.'

I took a breath to steady myself, ignoring the way Shepard's gaze had seemed to soften with knowing. "I just thought Jack would likely already be uncomfortable waking surrounded by Cerberus logos. No need to add to it by chaining her down."

"It'll probably still be uncomfortable waking up without her amp," Shepard said, her voice raising halfway into a question.

I shook my head. "Leave it until we're sure."

Shepard chuckled suddenly, running a hand through her hair to push it from her face. "Now, why didn't we do something like this when we released Grunt?" she said lightly.

"Because _someone _didn't give me time to prepare. I honestly didn't think you were even going to open the tank," I replied.

Shepard blinked at me. "You...didn't think I was going to open it?" she repeated, the corners of her mouth twitching up. "Have you met me?"

I gave an uncharacteristic roll of my eyes, and Shepard laughed. It _had_ been rather obvious that Shepard would release Grunt, now that I thought about it.

With nothing more to say, I finally motioned for Shepard to sit on an unoccupied bed while I rolled a scanner over. She tensed again at the reminder of the abnormality but scrambled onto the bed without hesitation. Shepard arranged herself flat along the bed, reaching up to pull her hair out from behind her neck so that it splayed out above her on the white pillow.

Minus that Shepard's eyes were open and watching me intently through a disorienting red glow, the routine from there was familiar, and I actually felt some of the tension unbunch from my shoulders. In the middle of the galaxy going to hell, working with quite possibly the most frustrating team of people I'd ever met, and ghosts of my past deciding that _right now_ was the best time to haunt me, working on Shepard was something I could _do_. So, while I may not have been actually perfect, I was at least the best damn person to fix Shepard, bar none. That was at least reassuring.

_I miss working on her_. It was a ridiculous sentiment, and I didn't actually want to go back because Shepard alive was monumentally better than her lying on my operating table. However, I missed the routine and having a goal that was not only clearly defined but within sight. I woke with reasonable expectations for what my day held for me, no surprises except for the predicted variations of our, admittedly rather untested, scientific techniques.

Now I could barely plan beyond the next few days. I arranged our inventory and budget meticulously, but there was always something happening to throw it off. Shepard needed this or wanted to stop on such and such planet because something was happening there that was Important. She was unruly and entirely unpredictable. On my worst days, I longed for the control chip I had wanted to place in her, and on my best days, I looked around me with mild discontent. There was something wrong about wishing for a time when Shepard wasn't conscious, but, well, no one can scold me in my own head for being irrational, and it _was _easier when I was in charge.

Shepard now had the ability to watch my visual examination of her with apprehension, and I needed nothing more to remind me that my routine from Lazarus Station could not wholly apply here. So I slowed my movements, trying to give Shepard time to prepare herself.

I started the scanner, let it pass through one cycle, and frowned. Glancing down at Shepard, who didn't look like she was going to snap at me, I reached in to gently tip Shepard's chin up, gaining a better angle to see her eyes which were steadfastly glued to my face in return. I saw no visible injuries, which the uploaded scans had also confirmed. _A problem with the cybernetics then. Curious. _

There was also a larger cybernetic implant at either hinge of her jaw, so I slipped my left hand gently on the right side of Shepard's neck to support it as I turned the left side to me. There. I shut the light off above us and could better see a faint glow visible beneath the skin. I leaned closer, and the scanner pinged wildly at an increase in Shepard's heart rate.

I peered down at her in concern. "Was something painful?"

I released the slight pressure I had on her chin so she could turn her face back towards me. Green eyes, irises still mostly visible even with the red glow of the cybernetics, met mine and then danced away.

"No," she muttered huskily.

I frowned but continued my examination, tracing the glow of red under her skin as Shepard's eyes fluttered shut. I made quick work of the clasps still holding on her breastplate, pulling the front off to expose her collarbone. The red glow continued, and I sighed, applying pressure gently at different places experimentally. There was no reaction except the scanner signaling again, to which Shepard's eyes sprang open, curiously less red than even a moment ago, and she blushed while directing a scowl to the scanner.

Part of my brain insisted that I pay attention to that, that something about Shepard's reaction was _important_, but I ignored it because her health was the priority. And there was something _wrong_ with Shepard.

"Cybernetics were incorporated into many different parts of your body, and as far as I can tell, they are what is causing the glow," I hummed thoughtfully, though I was mostly talking to myself. "Though why it started now is not very clear. Although, there was that spike in your stats on board the _Purgatory_. Perhaps it's linked to emotions?"

"There's no pain? Nothing feels wrong at all?" I inquired, remembering how she hadn't even noticed until I'd pointed it out.

Shepard minutely shook her head, and I brushed a finger, almost unconsciously, along Shepard's jaw as I continued to think out loud. Shepard sucked in a sharp breath.

"I'll need to check my notes again. The color is already fading, so it does seem like emotional distress was the culprit. However," I trailed off, frowning at my thoughts, "if there are no injuries or malfunctions, I'm not sure how to prevent it happening again."

I looked down, confused that Shepard wasn't berating me already for not knowing the answer, but I laughed low in my throat when I realized it was because she'd fallen asleep. Hardly surprising considering her nightly forays into the kitchen and general insomnia, I was still slightly irritated that she could fall asleep before the examination was even over.

"Where the fuck am I?" Jack screeched from the nearby bed.

Shepard startled awake and almost tumbled off the cot, only stopping when she managed a blind grab for my hand. Her other hand came up to rest over her chest, getting her breathing back under control. It all would have been amusing were Shepard not crushing my hand in her grip. And no, I was absolutely not thinking about the fact that Shepard wasn't letting go.

"Who the fuck are you people?" a frantic Jack demanded, eyes running across the room and settling finally on the logo stamped on my uniform. "Cerberus."

"Sort of," Shepard said. She slid off the cot, released my hand, and held both of hers out in front of her in a way that I'm sure was meant to be placating, but had always just irritated the hell out of me when it was directed my way. Jack didn't appreciate it either.

"I wake up in a room covered in Cerberus logos, and you're trying to tell me you're only 'sort of' Cerberus? You think I'm stupid?" Jack yelled.

"Well," I sneered—it wasn't as if she'd had an _actual_ education—and Shepard turned to me in exasperation. Jack huffed and banged a fist against her containment shields. Her biotics flickered but barely rippled the shield.

Her eyes widened in panic. "What did you do to my biotics?"

"Your amp is removed. We'll replace it once we're sure you won't _attack_ us," I stressed.

"Fat chance of that, bitch," Jack snarled.

"We do recruit the loveliest people," I muttered, and I heard Shepard give a quiet laugh beside me.

"Look, we're getting off on the wrong foot," Shepard said, trying to mollify her. "I'm Commander Shepard, and we bought you to recruit you."

"Bought? So I'm going to be some sort of slave? That's some recruitment," Jack shot back with venom.

"Not a slave. Part of our team. We're on an important mission that we could use your help on," Shepard explained.

"And if I don't want to? You gonna let me go?" Jack demanded. Red lips twisted in a smirk at Shepard's silence and pursed into disgust at my expressionless stare. "I thought so. Cerberus is always the same."

Likely Shepard hadn't even thought about what she would do when someone didn't jump to join her just because she'd asked. She always did recover quickly though.

Shepard's mouth drew into a hard line. "You're not a slave, but I can't say your options are much better," Shepard said. "I could let you go, but I doubt you'll get very far. I'm not Cerberus, but my ship, its AI, and my XO _are_ Cerberus. Lawson won't admit it outloud, but I imagine the _real_ Cerberus would be there to pick you up within the hour."

Jack scowled at me further, eyes dragging unimpressed along my form. I glared back, taking in small, malnourished features riddled with tattoos. _Don't worry; the feeling is mutual_, my eyes shot back to hers.

"Or you could work with me," Shepard continued. "And if we're not all dead at the end of this, I'll make sure Cerberus never comes near you."

"And how the fuck you plan to do that? You look pretty cozy here," Jack sneered, eyes flickering over to me again.

"Well, because once I'm done with this mission, I'm taking Cerberus' ship and getting the fuck out of here," Shepard proclaimed. I raised an eyebrow and she scoffed, "Like you haven't already planned for it, Lawson."

Shepard wasn't wrong; from the beginning, that's exactly what I expected her to do. Jack, however, didn't seem to care about the exchange and just watched us with a shrewd dislike, eyes jumping from one face to the other. She finally seemed to notice Dr. Chakwas at her desk and, surprisingly, glared at her the longest.

"Fine. Say I do work for you. I want something first," Jack declared.

"You're hardly in a position to make demands," I scoffed.

Shepard held out a hand to stop me. "You're right," she said to me, "but as a member of the team, she does have the right to make a request." Shepard turned to Jack. "What do you want?"

"I want the files Cerberus has on me," Jack said.

"No," I stated flatly. Shepard's eyes flashed in anger, and from the corner of my eye, I could see Jack on the edge of her seat as well, her mouth curled into a snarl.

"Lawson…" Shepard warned.

"I'm not being belligerent, Shepard. I don't have access to those files," I responded, irritated. "You think I didn't attempt to get in the moment the Illusive Man sent us that memo?"

Shepard looked at me in disbelief. "You're one of Cerberus' top ranking officers, you've seen the Illusive Man in person, and you're saying you can't get into some files?"

"I'm not given free reign to every Cerberus operation. Classified operations, especially, are restricted to the leader of the cell and the Illusive Man himself. You think just _anyone_ high in Cerberus' ranks would have access to Project Lazarus, to your records?" I scoffed at Shepard, my natural possessiveness sneaking into my voice. "Not without going through me first."

"It's not like blood pressure readings and budget reports are that valuable," Shepard said dismissively, easily distracted off our previous topic.

I crossed my arms over my chest. "On the contrary, some of the technology we used have exploitable weaknesses. With my knowledge of your anatomy, I could disable you in," I paused a moment to consider, "a few seconds, most likely."

Shepard looked at me blankly. "That is terrifying," she said.

Not one to be deterred, however, Jack pushed forward to interrupt.

"She just wants time to doctor the files to say what she wants," Jack accused.

"No, she won't," Shepard said before I could, defending me much to my shock. "Lawson can be…" Shepard fumbled for the right word, and I narrowed my eyes at her, "difficult, but I believe her."

I'd had more flattering descriptions, but considering where Shepard and I had started, her words were surprisingly amicable. I raised an eyebrow at her, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never came. Shepard just did her halfhearted little shrug and rubbed at the back of her neck, ignoring that Jack was looking at her with open disbelief.

"Is there a way to request authorization, Lawson?" Shepard asked, preemptively cutting off a chance for Jack to engage in what I'm sure would have been a very colorful rebuttal.

"I can try," I conceded crossly. But, really, what else could I say when Shepard had just defended me?

"Good," Shepard nodded, then turned to Jack. "We'll let you out now, but we'll keep your amp for a few days. Just until you can stop looking at me like you're imagining how much fun it'll be to murder me."

Jack rolled her eyes.

"Right, well, let's find you a place to sleep," Shepard offered.

Jack hopped off her bed when Shepard released the containment shields and shoved her finger in Shepard's face. "You better not cross me," she threatened. "And I want a deck far away from the Cerberus cheerleader."

I smirked at that, pleased I had already managed to get under her skin. Yet it quickly faded when Shepard turned back towards me with unbridled glee, no doubt ecstatic over there being a new nickname for me as well as a kindred spirit with whom to share them. I sighed, trying to ignore the fact that, instead of being annoyed, it rather just made me more fond of her.

XXX

I did try to get through the research notes, looking for something that would cause Shepard's cybernetics to react the way they were, but I couldn't settle at my desk. The skin on my stomach didn't roll right as I sat in my chair, and the extra fabric of my suit bunched in the wrong places. _I'm uncomfortable in my own skin_.

I reached in my desk drawer, pulling out a protein bar from the stash Shepard had acquired for me after my unfortunate meeting with Dr. Chakwas. I hated them. They were supposed to be craveable flavors like chocolate espresso and mint chocolate, but all it made me think of was _too much sugar, I can't eat those_, even when a look at the nutrition label told me they were sugar free.

With another disagreeable wiggle in my chair, I finally pushed myself out of it and repositioned myself in front of the bathroom mirror. I yanked down the front zipper of my suit revealing creamy perfect skin, but also the stark outlines of my ribs. I pinched at the skin there, pulling at it to try and made it look normal, but it was another set of ghost fingers that I felt.

_He was pinching hard, fingernails digging into my skin so that I knew I would have two little crescent shaped marks there later as evidence of my latest disappointment. _

"_What is this?" Father asked, the only emotion coming not from his voice but from how his fingers dug even deeper at the skin on my ribs. _

"_I'm just not used to the changes with the biotics yet. I'm hungry _all _the time," I explained. Biotics had to eat more to make up for the extra calories they burned, but no one had ever warned me that I would want to eat my weight in carbs all day. It was only natural that I had gained just a little weight. _

"_Yet you've obviously gotten used to the food quickly enough," he mocked me. The sickly feeling of shame spread through my chest. "However, I have a present for you. You complained that our old cook wasn't to your satisfaction. Well, this is Caterina," Father introduced the dark, olive skinned woman with even darker eyes. Her lips were painted a deep red and set in a firm line that belied an ability to smile. "She will be your new dietician. Nothing will pass that mouth of yours without her express permission."_

"_I hardly think…" I began to argue with all the indignation of a child that could finally be called a teenager. It was just like Father to offer me a present wrapped in a catch._

"_You know what will happen if you disobey," Father cut in, his voice lowering dangerously and dripping with disdain. "Do as I say, Miranda. No daughter of mine will ever be fat."_

_His fingernails finally left me_, and I realized that I had scratched harsh red lines all the way across my prominent ribs in an attempt to get rid of the feeling of his fingers being there. I finally peeled back the wrapper of the protein bar I still held in my hand and took a bite, chewing past the awful dryness in my mouth. I tried to swallow, almost gagging on the mass that was supposed to taste like caramel fudge (not that I'd ever eaten such a thing to know the difference) before throwing it away from me in disgust. _Nothing will pass that mouth of yours without her express permission_, his voice mocked me again.

I tried to push it from my mind, walking back into the main room where the sight of the pillows stacked in the corner of my room reminded me of this morning's interrupted objective, and I pounced on the opportunity to do something useful.

Floating the pillows behind me, I walked past the questioning looks from the crewman just coming off the afternoon watch, also known as the third of the crew labeled Team Hydra, and kept my eyes firmly forward as I marched into the elevator.

Grunt wasn't in his little cargo room when I entered, strange but not overly so. He could be in the lower cargo hold; I'd noticed he enjoyed the combat simulator, even if just by making it display different settings. I made a mental note to see if I could download locations that might be more interesting to him and in the meantime, occupied myself with arranging the bedding I'd brought in a corner of the room.

I chose the back right corner, near Grunt's tank that he'd pushed flush against the back wall. The crates had been cleared out and restacked to give him more room, but Grunt had rearranged some of the stacks horizontally across the small room, losing much of the free space that had been gained by the original reorganization.

Grunt had explained that the crates were there to give extra cover in case he needed to fend off an attack. I had considered telling him how unlikely it was that he would need to defend this particular room instead of, say, engineering, but ultimately didn't. The arrangement made him feel more secure, and, well, that was fine.

The krogan came stomping into the room just as I'd finished draping the blankets I'd brought over the distribution of pillows. I turned in surprise; I hadn't heard the elevator.

Grunt looked at the makeshift bed with a exasperated chuff. "I said I was fine."

"And I ignored you," I stated. "Everyone deserves basic niceties. I'll arrange something better one we stop for supplies again."

He hummed in assent. "Well, thank you, Lawson."

"Don't call me that," I grimaced. "The only people who insist on using only my last name are Shepard and people who are trying to remind me of my father. Please, it's Operative Lawson or just Miranda."

"Miranda," he said, trying out the name. "I don't care about Cerberus titles."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Does it not bother you to be working with Cerberus? We have been described as terrorists and murderers," I said. Grunt laughed, and I continued on, not sure why I was intent on defaming myself and the organization. "I've tortured people, killed them for Cerberus' ideals."

It wasn't an overly large number of people, true, but I also didn't have an exactly count because I simply hadn't cared enough to keep track. I did what I needed to for my mission, and that was that. Many times it was either me or them, and I wasn't about to prioritize some stranger over myself.

Grunt, however, just seemed amused. "Why should I care? You were stronger, so you're alive."

I watched him blankly, not used to the casual indifference—no, seemingly real acceptance—that Grunt was offering. He didn't even seem to care why I'd done the things I had. Instead, he turned away from me and walked over to his new 'bed,' sitting down on it experimentally. Grunt eyed the area next to him, watching me expectantly as I dithered by the side.

I really hadn't planned on staying, thinking longingly of the solitude that awaited me upstairs, but eventually sank into the spot he'd motioned to. Grunt wiggled just a little closer to me, though whether it was from a misplaced sense of friendship or because he hadn't picked up on social boundaries yet, I wasn't sure. Surprisingly, though I clenched my jaw on instinct, the closeness wasn't uncomfortable, more...different.

"Is the Illusive Man your battlemaster?" Grunt asked, turning slightly to level his eyes at me. "I asked Shepard if she was your battlemaster, but she said you worked for the Illusive Man."

I'd heard the term 'battlemaster' once or twice; it was a uniquely krogan idea, so it was unsurprising that Okeer had included it in the tank training program.

"I do work for the Illusive Man, but I also work for Shepard. Can you have two battlemasters?" I asked. Grunt pulled back in shock, his lips pulling into a snarl.

"No," he said forcefully. "Your human hierarchy isn't the same thing. A battlemaster is someone you choose because they are the best and there is no one else you would rather fight for." His mouth twisted further into a disgusted grimace. "You cannot have two."

"Oh," I hummed thoughtfully. The Illusive Man, well, I believed in his ideals. Of course, I fought for humanity, but..._no one else I would rather fight for? _"Does one have to have a battlemaster?"

Grunt seemed more content at this question and shook his head. "It takes time to find the best," he explained.

I smiled softly to myself. "Then perhaps I have no battlemaster? Not yet, anyway," I replied, careful to keep my voice normal. It was easy to let my tone fall into something gentle and placating when talking to Grunt, but I reminded myself that he wasn't a child and shouldn't be treated as one.

"Me neither," Grunt allowed, nodding.

We shared a glance of mutual understanding, though something seemed to catch Grunt's attention through the window. I turned to see, but there was nothing there except—and perhaps it was just my imagination—a flash of something dark. I almost wanted to go see if I was correct, confirm someone had been there eavesdropping, but Grunt turned to me with an expression serious enough to present to the Council. I tensed slightly, expecting...Well, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but nothing good certainly.

"What do you know about sharks?"

_Talk about mental whiplash_. "Well, they...live in water. I've personally only seen a few off the coast where I grew up," I tried to answer just as seriously as Grunt sucked in my words."Why?"

Grunt scrambled up from the pillows and retrieved a datapad that had been resting on a nearby crate. He handed the datapad to me, so I could see the words displayed across the top of the screen, "The Old Man and the Sea."

"Shepard gave me this book," Grunt explained, tapping on the screen with emphasis. "And I want to know what sharks are."

I couldn't help but smile at such unbridled enthusiasm, the way he was almost bouncing on the pillows. However, even my knowledge had gaps, and I was woefully ignorant about sharks.

"What makes you think I would know about sharks?" I inquired slowly.

In a manner that would rival a teenager, Grunt's eyes stared at me flatly. "You said you were the perfect human. You should know things."

"Well, you're a perfect krogan, and you don't know about sharks either," I reasoned. Grunt frowned, but I turned to him suddenly with an idea. "Did that tank of yours teach you about the extranet?"

He shook his head, so I carefully reached out to take his left arm, his scales surprisingly soft to the touch. I pulled up his omni-tool navigation and connected it to the _Normandy_'s extranet connection before presenting it back to him proudly, a browser screen already open.

"Alright, type in 'sharks,'" I instructed.

Grunt complied excitedly, grunting with open admiration as hundred of pictures of different species of sharks filled the screen. We stayed that way for a while, Grunt reading about sharks and me laughing at his reactions or explaining things he didn't understand. It was fun just to be down here with no crew members watching me, no one to comment on how odd it was that I would be spending time with the krogan. But it felt friendly, normal. Mostly it felt _comfortable_, even if just for a little while, and I wished I could thank my strange krogan teammate for this moment.

Eventually, I realized I had stayed much longer than I had ever intended, so I stiffly stood from sitting in our low position for so many hours. I said goodnight to Grunt and headed back to the third deck where I ran into Shepard with her usual nighttime snack in the mess. I held up a hand in acknowledgement.

"Up already?" I mused.

"No," Shepard said, shaking her head. "Never went to sleep. In fact…" Shepard reached beside her and pulled out my alarm clock, newly fixed. "...I had some time to take care of this. So you'd have it for tomorrow."

I took it from her, smiling faintly. I had planned on just using the alarm function on my omni-tool, but this was very thoughtful. I looked over at her.

"Thank you," I said earnestly. "But you _should_ go to sleep."

"It's usually Garrus who comes out here to tell me to get my ass to bed. Good to know you can easily fill the role as well," Shepard joked. She pushed her plate towards me, presenting a strawberry frosted pastry that we kept on the ship specially for her. The sugar packed treat looked cheap and unappealing to me, but I'd made sure to buy more for her at every stop. "You want some?"

I tried not to grimace, once again thinking of all the sugar even as I was slightly curious about what they tasted like, but words from my most recent flashback—_No daughter of mine will ever be fat_—made an unwelcome appearance. I shook my head vehemently at her offer, though the moment allowed a realization I'd been unknowingly fighting against all day to crash through. It settled on my shoulders and forced me into the seat across from Shepard.

"You remember what you said to Jack? That as a member of the crew, she could make a request?" I preluded.

Shepard bent her head down in acknowledgement. "I remember. And I meant it."

"I could use a favor as well," I admitted, the reluctant confession dropping slowly from my lips

"Does this have to do with the...things...the doctor mentioned?" Shepard said eloquently.

I sighed. "Really, I thought you would have forgotten about that by now," I lied.

"I tried," she replied. I imagine she was joking, but the words gave a small sting all the same, "but Dr. Chakwas has been hounding me incessantly about it."

"And yet you managed to hold back all of your questions," I said dryly.

Shepard's gaze narrowed as she reached to rub her right shoulder. "I actually thought you'd find the questions invasive," she explained, barely meeting my eyes. "I was hoping you'd work it out yourself before I was forced to potentially offend you."

A smile snuck its way onto my face before I broke out into a sharp laugh. These were the moments that reassured me that her personality was correct, intact: it was such a Shepard thing to do.

"Avoid the problem until it goes away?" I ventured, still smirking. "It's too bad that wouldn't have worked on Sovereign."

Shepard shrugged back sheepishly. "Well Sovereign was huge and very hard to ignore properly. Plus he kept casually insulting me," she explained. "But back to the problem at hand: what did you need?"

"You remember what I told you about my father?" I began, and Shepard nodded. "Well he's become more aggressive in his search for Oriana, my sister. I had her safely hidden from him, but now I need to move her. Of course, my contacts should have it handled, but…"

"You'd feel better if you could handle it in person," Shepard finished for me. "I can see how that might have caused a lot of stress these few weeks."

The tone of her words pulled up just slightly on the end: a question, if I wished to answer it.

"Yes. This would ease my mind greatly," I admitted. Shepard's eyes told me she suspected there was more, and my eyes pleaded right back for her not to ask. I hoped she could tell that this was the only thing she could help with, that this would be enough. Oriana was the most important thing; my sister was _everything_.

"When?"

"Two weeks from now. On...Illium," I admitted slowly. Shepard's face paled—I imagined at the thought that her reunion with Liara was likely being hastened forward. I wasn't exactly excited by the idea either—but Shepard still nodded.

"We can be there," she said finally, and I sighed, already feeling lighter.

"Thank you, Shepard," I said with a faint smile.

"I should be thanking you. It took me until today to realize how much you take care of on this ship all by yourself," Shepard admitted. And it didn't sound grudging at all.

"It's my job," I replied automatically.

"Then thank you for doing it _well_," she added: seven words I never knew I needed to hear. Excellence from me was a given, but few remembered to actually thank me for it. Yet, with her simple sentiment, Shepard managed to pierce me through and through until I was just sitting there staring at her, dumbfounded.

"Goodnight, Miranda," Shepard murmured, so low it was almost a whisper as she stood to leave the mess.

My mouth stayed clamped shut as my heart shot into my throat. _Shepard said my name_. Not 'Lawson' or 'Victor' or 'Princess.' My _name_, like I was finally a person to her.

_Do I say something?_ I felt out of my league; were it anyone else, I surely wouldn't have cared, never would have noticed. _What would I even expect Shepard's response to be if I brought it up? You're welcome?_ I cringed at the thought, but I still wanted to say something, anything, that might acknowledge the moment when the chance was taken from me.

Both our omni-tools lit up, my left arm tingling slightly at the same time as Shepard's pealed out a loud bell, and they flashed an urgent message: a summons to a call from the Illusive Man.

XXX

Garrus

As soon as they cleared me for outpatient treatment, I was jumping into my clothes and running to the hospital elevator. In completely dignified turian military fashion, of course. The past few days had been excruciating hours of boredom where I rotated between sleeping and trying to find ways to entertain myself in the hospital bed. I had been allowed to walk around the hospital on my own yesterday, but even then, there was only so much to occupy myself with in a lobby of sick people. Finally, the doctor had allowed that I could finish resting on my own in a hotel room instead of taking up a hospital bed. For me that translated to freedom to roam the Citadel.

I checked into a decent, single bed hotel room in Kithoi Ward and dropped off my belongings, a small overnight bag Miranda had made up from the _Normandy_, before tottering through Edroki Plaza to the restaurants that surrounded it. I sequestered myself away in the corner the eatery's balcony, nestled in the shadow of the Council Central Archives while overlooking the famous Palaven Garden. I sighed in contentment: this was my favorite Ward on the Citadel.

I felt out of place, though, sitting here relaxing while Shepard was on the other side of the galaxy moving forward with our mission. I toyed with a glass of juice that I'd ordered. _Maybe I'll just check my messages. See how they're doing_.

The sudden clatter of a plate hitting the ground caught my attention before I could finish pulling up the messages on my omni-tool. A turian hurried away from the scene, navigating through the tables so fast I could only see the back of his fringe. I followed him with my eyes, something about him resonating with me. It was there, hidden right behind a fog in my head. He looked so familiar..._Sidonis_.

With a growl, I pushed out of my table as well, bowling through the area to try and catch him. I reached to my back, cursing when my hand felt nothing but my thin shirt. _Of course you don't have your fucking gun, Garrus. You're in the middle of a Citadel restaurant. What were you going to do anyway? Shoot him over someone's tea?_ My sarcastic thoughts still sounded an awful lot like Shepard. _Damn that woman for getting in my head_.

I chased after Sidonis anyway, even knocking a full table over in my pursuit. The occupants protested as it tumbled to the side, spilling plates and food to the ground. A man tried to grab my arm, but I shook him off, going for the exit. Sidonis had already managed to slip through the doorway.

Bursting out after him, I tumbled into a small human woman, knocking her to the ground as I frantically scanned the surrounding crowd for my target. Sidonis was nowhere to be seen, already sucked into the lunchtime traffic of the Plaza. I clutched at my chest where it was burning after the sudden exercise, causing my hacking cough to come back for a few moments. _Glad to see I'm following the doctor's orders to the letter_. I kicked at the luggage the woman had dropped to the ground, growling lowly as I scanned the area with no success.

"Well, excuse you," the woman I'd run into said from the ground. Her voice had a distinct accent, though I wasn't familiar enough with human cultures to really place it.

"Sorry," I hastily offered once my breathing was back under control. It wasn't her fault I'd lost that traitor. I extended a hand to help her up, and she took it warily. I was weaker than I'd thought after my impromptu run, however, and pulling her up almost sent me to the ground as well. The woman gripped my arm in support, holding me up once she was on her feet.

She was dark skinned with even darker eyes, and she was wearing the distinct uniform of a member of the Alliance, though she didn't have the look of a soldier. _A lab probably_, I reasoned. Once I was steady, she reached for a suitcase I'd knocked from her grasp, and I grimaced apologetically.

"Where are you off to in such a hurry?" she asked, still looking mildly irritated as she brushed at her clothes.

"I…" My thoughts turned dark again at the mention of Sidonis, and I practically growled, "thought I saw someone I knew."

"Right," she scoffed. I wavered on my feet, light headed. "Can I help you get somewhere? You don't look very good."

"Maybe I could use a hand back to the hospital," I considered. _Not like I could give that asshole what he deserves while I'm in this state anyway. But he was here: I have a lead._ My mind wheeled with the new possibilities as the woman looked at me in alarm. Reminded of our conversation, I hurriedly reassured her, "I'm just recovering from an injury. My run was too much too soon."

She nodded thoughtfully, readjusted her grip on her suitcase—I did manage a twinge of guilt at the new dent I'd put in it with my earlier kick—and offered her arm, which I took again gratefully. I did try to put as little of my weight on her as possible, however. She _was_ much smaller than me.

"What are you doing in Kithoi Ward?" I asked, hobbling stiffly as I tried to avoid irritating my chest more.

The woman glanced up at me and shot a quick look behind us as we crossed Edroki Plaza. "I had some research to complete in the Archives," she explained. I regarded her skeptically.

"With a suitcase?" I asked.

She frowned at me. "I remembered last minute. But I'm on my way out," she explained, nodding at her suitcase. She didn't offer any more or indicate where she was going.

"I'm Garrus," I offered, deciding not to pry more and insult my helper, "Garrus Vakarian."

The woman stumbled slightly, looking at me with wide eyes.

"_The_ Garrus Vakarian?" she stuttered. "As in Commander Shepard's Garrus Vakarian?"

I narrowed my eyes at the possession but eventually nodded. "That's me," I confirmed. "And you are?"

Her back stiffened, and she smoothed at her uniform noticeably.

"Specialist Samantha Traynor," she said. "I work in one of the Alliance's technology labs back on Earth."

"Interesting," I hummed.

Samantha must have heard something in my tone because she hurried to continue, "I'm on leave. This was just a quick stop because the Archives don't allow remote access. I'm on my way to visit my parents."

We turned a corner together and stopped to hail a shuttle to take us over to Huerta Memorial. I thought she would leave me once it arrived and continue on her way, but Samantha crawled into the shuttle with me.

"I've heard about what you and the commander are doing," Samantha said into the quiet of the cab as it rose into the air. "I'm glad something is being done about the colony attacks. In fact, I'm on my way to Horizon to try and convince my parents to come to Earth with me. Until all this blows over, of course."

I flinched internally at that. If only she knew how bad this actually was, that this wasn't something that would just 'blow over.'

"That's a good idea," I agreed. "I hope they go with you."

"Are you not working with Shepard anymore? Is that why you aren't with her?" Samantha inquired.

"No, nothing like that," I assured her. "Just in recovery then I'll be back to fighting with her. I had even considered leaving today. Traveling on a transport would be restful enough that I'd be fine by the time I got to her."

"Are you perhaps going to be going the same direction?" Samantha inquired. I looked at her questioningly, and she flushed. "We could travel together."

Realization dawned on me. "You want to meet Shepard," I teased, surprisingly comfortable with her though we'd just met. She was rather mousy, her voice timid, but her grip had been like iron: I liked her.

"I'm sure anyone would want to meet Commander Shepard," Samantha stammered. She looked at me hopefully.

"I'm afraid it's almost the opposite direction, actually," I admitted, sad to disappoint her.

Our cab landed down with a soft thump, and Samantha helped me maneuver my way out of it without falling over. The neon sign of the hospital shone above us, and Samantha held a hand on the cab so it wouldn't go away yet.

"Oh, well, maybe one day," she said with a little shrug, trying to play it off.

"Maybe one day," I agreed. "It was nice to meet you, Samantha. Thanks for your help."

Samantha shook my outstretched hand and smiled. "I'm kind of glad you ran into me," she joked.

She waved goodbye as she slid back into the shuttle, heading off to whatever transport was going to take her to Horizon. I made my way into the hospital to get checked out, actually a little disappointed that I would probably never see her again.

My omni-tool lit up with a message, playing the distinct tone assigned to Shepard's messages.

**Garrus,**

**We can't make a stop on the Citadel to get you; we've got a tip on a colony. Grab a shuttle and meet us at these coordinates. It's urgent.**

**Shepard**

I looked at the location attached with the message and almost choked: Horizon.

* * *

**Besides having a particularly hard time with this chapter (AKA completely rewriting it at one point), I hope everyone enjoys the final product! Now, I know some of the Mass Effect purists out there are gasping at the change to Jack's mission, but, honestly, I always felt like her breaking out and destroying the ship was an excuse for the game to show her skills and add fighting to the mission. Plus, Jack never had a choice to begin with: either Shepard buys her or Shepard has the only way off the failing prison ship. So I decided to address the ethical issues around Jack's recruitment this way (and really, what *would* Shepard have done if Jack didn't want to help?). **

**I'll also wager many of you never saw Samantha coming into this, but remember when she said she was on Horizon visiting her parents when the Collectors came? Yeah, the game should have given us more than just *that*, because that would've been scary as hell for her. Let's see what our favorite turian will do about that, shall we?**

**Just one announcement: though I've been decent about doing a chapter a month, I am moving to another state this week plus some job hunting, so the next chapter might be a little late :/ Sorry in advance. **

**Thank you to all of my readers, and I can't wait to hear what you all think!**


	16. Fate, Luck, and Bloody Calculus

**Ch.16: Fate, Luck, and Bloody Calculus**

Garrus

"Hey watch it!" a salarian yelled as I barreled through the walkway with my omni-tool held at chest-height. I tried my best to type and jog at the same time, but it was hard when I was weighed down by my overnight bag hanging on one arm. I gave a frustrated growl when my search came up empty. _Too small, too small, and too goddamn small!_ There were no shuttles here with a fuel tank that could get me to Horizon and no transports going that way either. I did a double take. _That's not possible; that Alliance soldier said she was leaving today_.

I punched a code furiously into my omni-tool, still on a mad dash to the docks.

"Garrus," a gravely voice greeted me. "Been a long time."

"Chellick! Need a favor," I spat out, making a tight right turn and hopping into one of the Citadel rapid transports. I waved my omni-tool over the receiver, typed in the coordinates, and the shuttle raised up to set off.

"I assumed as much. You wouldn't check in otherwise," Chellick replied.

I grimaced. "Right. Of course, I'll owe you one. Look, I need to get to Horizon, and there's a transport somewhere going that direction. I need to be on it."

"I'm sure you know how to conduct an extranet search," Chellick intonated.

"Don't give me that, Chellick," I growled. I heard him sigh on the other end of the line as well as the steady click of his typing on the hepatic keyboard.

"Looks like the Alliance has registered a flight plan for one of their ships. Going to Horizon," Chellick said lowly. "You'll have to get on it yourself. Docking area E26. I'd hurry."

"Thanks," I replied, punching the omni display closed.

I redirected the shuttle to the E bay instead of main docks and tumbled out of the seat the moment it set down on the ground. A pair of humans in Alliance uniforms stood guard at one of the loading docks, the bright overhead lighting washing out their already pale features. I made for them and tried my hardest not to actually run while still managing to power walk at a good pace. I skidded into a stop in front of them, my eyes darting between the two faces as I tried to figure out which one to look at. I settled for both.

"Officers," I said casually.

They closed ranks immediately. "I'm sorry, sir. You don't have authorization to proceed beyond this point," the man on the left said. He narrowed his owlish, grey eyes at me, and one of his hands inched closer to his firearm.

I scowled at him. Sure, he was just doing his job, but something about his face rubbed me the wrong way before he even opened his mouth. "This transport is going to Horizon, right? I need to get there; it's important."

"Excuse us if we don't just take you at your word," the man on the right spoke finally, his low, gruff voice grating to my ears. "This ship is private, Alliance property. I'm not even sure how you know its destination."

I gave an exasperated huff, searching back in my memory for the name of that officer. "I know an Alliance officer on the ship, Samantha Traynor. She can vouch for me."

The two soldiers—who, for the life of me, I could barely tell apart—glanced between each other and seemed to come to a silent conclusion as the man on the left gave a sharp turn on his heel and marched onto the ship. I stood there staring awkwardly at the remaining human, his eyes obstinately trained on the far wall except for the few times they flickered across me to make sure I was still standing there compliantly.

Another minute passed, and finally, I heard the sound of footsteps returning on the metal walkway. A wide-eyed Samantha followed, but her face lifted once she saw me.

"Garrus? What are you doing here?" she asked, her hands clasping in front of her. I grimaced at the two soldiers still watching me too closely.

"Well, it turns out that I'm going the same direction as you after all," I said, using my mandibles as emphasis.

Samantha's face closed off, her mouth falling into a harsh line. "I'll talk to the captain," she said, her eyes narrowing shrewdly. I fell into step behind her as she led me onto the ship. "This is a supply run, but maybe they won't mind some extra security."

"Not that I'm complaining, but this is a pretty small ship. They may not need me," I pointed out.

Samantha frowned. "The captain seems like a smart man. With the problems in the colonies lately, I doubt he'll turn an extra gun away."

We turned a corner of the ship together, quickly closing the short distance to a rickety elevator. The entire ship seemed to be the dark color of rust, though the hum of the engine sounded strong and clean. Crates and boxes were piled high and strapped down with thick, black ropes, and a few crew members milled about, though the majority seemed to be simple soldiers. I furrowed my brow, taking in the markings of Samantha's uniform again.

"I thought you were on leave?" I asked.

She glanced at me sideways. "I...am. Because I was doing research for the Alliance, they provided transport to Horizon," she explained. Samantha bit her lip as she considered me again. "Plus, the research is part of the outreach program for Horizon. They're trying to strengthen communications."

"As well as weaponry," I observed, noting the labels on several crates as we passed by them. Samantha's shoulders tensed, and she refrained from comment until we were safely ensconced in the elevator.

She rounded on me the moment the doors shuddered closed. "This is bad."

"I wouldn't say-," I began but Samantha cut me off with a loud scoff.

"It's always bad when Shepard is involved," she said in a hard voice.

"I'm sure your parents are fine," I reassured her. Her head popped up, and she looked surprised. "It might just be a false lead."

Samantha gave me a small smile. "Let's hope so," she agreed as the elevator doors cranked open to reveal a guard on the entrance to the control deck. "The captain is in the cockpit. Wait here. I'll be back."

I stepped far enough out for the elevator to close behind me, my every move watched by the olive-skinned Alliance officer in front of me. She had hazel eyes that held steady and alert even as the rest of her body indicated she was bored by her guard duty. I tried smiling to show I wasn't going to try anything, but her face didn't even twitch in return.

_Well, a conversation is out of the question_. Next, I occupied myself with a sweeping scan of what part of the deck I could see, but the moment my eyes switched to my surroundings, my guard grew tense, stepping forward like a warning. So, instead, I settled for examining my feet. The bag I was still carrying was starting to get heavy, and I considered setting it down but decided that my guard would probably just think I was about to blow something up.

Then, just as I was deciding whether or not the lateral talon of my right foot was _actually_ bigger than the lateral talon of my left foot, Samantha returned, her face cloudy. She motioned for me to follow, and we entered the elevator together again.

"The captain agreed to the passage, but you have to stay on the crew deck at all times. Unless there's an emergency. And you can't have a weapon on you until then," Samantha instructed. She bit her lip as she glanced up at me, but I just shrugged. The terms were reasonable.

"The captain doesn't really know me. I get it," I responded. When her expression still seemed troubled, I asked, "Is it a non-human thing?"

She laughed. "No. The captain is actually a turian as well. This ship was only contracted by the Alliance to move the supplies quickly. Otherwise, you wouldn't have been let on," she explained. "Doesn't make the captain less of an arsehole. He didn't even consider it until I said your name."

"And Shepard's as well," I predicted.

"That too," she admitted with a guilty dip of her head.

She led us out of the arrived elevator onto the crew deck until we turned a corner and reached what was obviously the crew's quarters. The room wasn't glamorous or nearly as clean as I had grown used to, and it could have dearly used a fresh coat of paint and replacements for the dark light bulbs. I shook away my distaste as Samantha pointed me in the direction of an unclaimed bed, and I dropped my bag beside it with relief. The bed looked decent at least.

"I know it looks bad, but it's a short trip," Samantha said with a grimace at the room. She gave me a once-over. "Maybe get some rest. If you manage to sleep the whole way, I'll wake you when we get there. We'll be leaving in a few minutes."

"Made it just in time," I smirked before sinking down onto the bed. The springs gave an unsettling squeak, and I frowned at the mattress as Samantha shook her head and closed the door on her way out. I arranged myself lengthwise on the bed anyway and, tired from my race across the Citadel, easily drifted off to sleep.

XXX

Miranda

Everyone likes to believe that they're special, that they're somehow made differently than everyone else, even when they aren't. Most people, no matter the species, are painfully ordinary. The ground team of the _Normandy_ was the exception: with modesty thrown away, every single one of us could brag to something extraordinary. Grunt, Jack, and I were all created to be exceptional, though the individual circumstances were decidedly different. Garrus could boast to a lineage high in the turian hierarchy (though I'd noticed he spoke of it very little), and he had been molded from the very beginning to be what he is. Mordin was naturally intelligent, more so than the already high bar set for a salarian. It would be easy to continue the list for each of us.

Shepard, of course, was the exception within the exception, simply because of how pedestrian her beginnings had actually been. Every other person could claim to the life of a spacer child, running rampant through the environmentally controlled stations. She'd been alone, a dirty kid crawling through ducts and making trouble with other equally dirty children.

From there, it makes no sense that Shepard could become what she has. _Shepard_ made no sense. Maybe if she had organized all those delinquents into a rebellion against the space station or shown an early genius with technology during her pranks others would have noticed her sooner. But, really, it wasn't until Akuze that anyone really recognized what she could do, even if it was just an uncanny ability to survive.

Yes, the N7 program had trained her, but her capacity to accomplish the impossible was simply there already. Much of my research when restoring her brain had been to that end: identifying whatever quality she had so I could make _sure_ that she would retain it. Yet, somewhere hiding among 23 pairs of chromosomes was an immutable truth that no amount of research, frantic pacing, or, occasionally, throwing things had gotten me any closer to, and after two years of research I had finally fallen back on two explanations: fate or sheer luck. The first I didn't believe in, but the second...well, she would have needed a lot of it.

_Yet none of that stops her from being a bit of a mess,_ I thought, as Jack, Grunt, and I huddled around an injured Shepard within an abandoned colonist's home. We were closing in on the center of Horizon, where EDI's scans had placed the landed Collector's ship, but for the moment, the team was scattered between two homes, falling against walls or in chairs with heaving breaths.

"Fuck me, Miranda! That hurts!" Shepard shouted, wriggling under my hands.

"Only if you ask nicely," I deadpanned, pulling at the armor pieces around her dislocated shoulder with a roll of my eyes.

Shepard's mouth pulled back in confusion, but then she flushed all the way to her hairline, missing my smirk and a shake of my head. Much as I loved the reaction, it was just another piece of Shepard that seemed out of place: a tendency for blushing doesn't fit with scowls, furrowed brows, and a general proclivity towards violence. Shepard frowned through her blush and tried to pull away but ended up just aggravating the shoulder more, leaving her gasping with pain.

"You're being stupid. Just let the cheerleader fix it so we can get out of here," Jack growled from where she was plopped casually on a bed. She'd found a tennis ball somewhere in the room and was now bouncing it against the wall in a steady rhythm that was both soothing and irritating, given who was making the noise.

"Seconded," I chirped, glaring at Shepard pointedly.

Grunt stopped his vigilant pacing by the window to throw in, "Agreed."

"Big day when you and Jack agree on something," Shepard muttered.

I scoffed but was just about to grudgingly agree when Jack's tennis ball suddenly flew over to smack me in the side of the head. I whipped to face her, biotics flaring as I made to shoot the ball back at her, when Shepard's hand on my wrist stayed me.

"The shoulder, please, Miranda," Shepard gritted out.

"Alright, armor is off, so lie on your back," I ordered, ignoring Jack's still-present smirk I could see from the corner of my eye.

I heard a snort from Jack on the bed, and I looked down to see Shepard blushing again while she rearranged herself on the ground. The light shone in through the window to strike at her eyes, lighting the green irises in an ethereal glow above the rosy tint that still brushed along her cheeks under her freckles. I caught my breath when a kind of tenderness crept in to coil around my throat, my eyes stuck on the wisps of her loose hair and the little scar above her eyebrow.

Shepard turned her head to see what held me, and I recovered by reaching for her right arm, the injured one, and slowly straightening it out towards me. Shepard hissed through her teeth, but there really wasn't much else for it, so I braced myself against her side and began to pull the arm slowly out. I continued, slowly stretching the limb further and further until it popped back into the socket. Shepard groaned her relief, and I maneuvered her arm gently back towards her torso.

She began to sit up and reach for her armor, but I slapped her hands away. Ignoring her noise of protest, I silenced further argument with a look and pulled out a syringe labeled 'anti-inflammatory' from the pouch attached to my armor. I flicked the cap off, pressed it to her shoulder, and used my thumb to eject the needle.

"I hate needles," Shepard hissed, rubbing at her shoulder when I was done. "The suit would've just put medi-gel on it."

I leveled a look at her. "Medi-gel hardens, and then you wouldn't have been able to move your shoulder," I replied, exasperated. "Honestly, how you survived so many years as a soldier is beyond me."

"Well, I did die," Shepard replied. A smile crept onto her face. Though gone in a flash, it had definitely been there, and my mouth dropped slightly as I stared. Shepard had actually _joked _with me.

The clunk of Jack's boots hitting the ground drew my gaze away. "Ugh," she said, stomping towards the door. "I can't watch this. I'll stand guard outside or something."

"It's done anyway," I said. I kept my eyes carefully away from Shepard and stood from where I was crouched beside her. "We should touch base with the rest of the team and move forward."

I saw Shepard nod, strap and buckle the armor back around her shoulder and arm, and then she led us out of the building. She did a quick check to her left and right, then, satisfied that no enemies lay hidden nearby, crossed the grassy space to the staircase across the way. The four of us stayed close together, eyes flickering from shadow to shadow and only relaxing once we'd crossed the threshold of another colonist's house that held the rest of our team.

"Alright," Shepard said, dropping into an empty chair. "Our destination is close. What've we got, EDI?"

"Here is the layout of the next area," her mechanized voice played from the speaker of Shepard's omni-tool for all to hear as a projection appeared. "The Collector ship remains in the same place, but scans have shown that the remaining Collector ground forces have withdrawn and are heading to your same destination. Resistance is expected to be heavy."

"What's keeping us from just bombing the ship with the _Normandy_?" Grunt asked.

"Human casualties," Shepard pointed out. "They've likely been loading the colonists on that ship. We can't just blow it up if there's still a chance to save them."

"Survival of colonists: unlikely. Destruction of Collector ship...beneficial," Mordin spoke up.

The room went dead silent, everyone avoiding the eyes of their neighbors. The option was brutal. And bloody tempting. Yet, Shepard's expression didn't seem to wholly disagree either, and once again, I was forced to look at her in a different light, remind myself that she wasn't all the Hero others proclaimed her to be.

Shepard shook her head. "Doesn't matter. Look at this," she said, pointing to a figure in the middle of the square. "That's an anti-aircraft. I don't know if it's active, but if the Collector ship is right next to it, they've either disabled it or turned it to their purposes. I'm not willing to bring the _Normandy_ in close if there's a chance that thing might be working."

She stared at the hologram a moment longer then clasped her hands together. "Alright. Here's what we're gonna do," she announced. "These buildings on the east and west sides of the plaza will make great cover for long range attacks. Unfortunately, we've only got one sniper. Zaeed and Kasumi, you'll take the eastern side. Kasumi, you'll make sure to watch your exits to protect Zaeed's back."

"Jacob and Mordin will take the western buildings. Jacob, your assault rifle has some decent range. Do your best, but don't be afraid to come closer and use this to your advantage," Shepard continued, now pointing to a low walkway connecting two buildings on that side.

"I want the rest of our power on the ground, so that means me, Miranda, Jack, and Grunt. We'll be working to take that anti-aircraft with everyone's support from the sides. If we make it far enough, we'll all gather together to infiltrate the docked Collector ship to retrieve the colonists," Shepard finished her orders. She closed her eyes briefly and opened them again with a sigh.

"Or turn the anti-aircraft against the Collector ship. Possibly bring the _Normandy_ in as well," I finished for her. "At the very least, we'd keep them from loading more colonists onto the ship."

Shepard agreed with a grim nod, and Grunt caught my eyes to give me an affirmation along with a twisted grin.

"They're not getting any more colonists," Shepard promised.

She reached for her helmet and slid it over her head, tucking the wayward tendrils of her hair back behind her shoulders. Then there were no more scowls, no more smirks, no more blushes: just the blank front of a dark visor. Commander Shepard stepped forward, and the rest of us followed.

She led us straight for the center we'd evaluated, warily scoping to the left and the right for surprises. We met no resistance, which made encountering a very large door seem like a precipice. The whole team readied weapons as one. Then Zaeed and Kasumi broke off to enter the buildings on the right, while Jacob and Mordin did the same to the left, leaving the remaining four of us to face head-on whatever lay behind the door.

We were not disappointed. The door opened to hoarse groans of husks already throwing themselves against it backed by the chorus of Collector wings as they flew over the sides of the buildings to join. The four of us broke through anyway, seeing our teammate support from the sides as enemies would go down with a hole through the head or frozen solid in ice.

Shepard had us hold position around the anti-aircraft, connecting it to EDI to activate it when it didn't work right away. Then the fight was simply to hold. With us three biotics and the tower of strength that was Grunt, the circle we maintained around the anti-aircraft gun felt like a fortress, stonework walls standing steady against a siege. Our attacks felt as easy as breathing, like the whole team moved to an internal rhythm played over the comms (which might actually have happened had I not fiercely disagreed with Shepard's suggestion to play music in the helmets today).

Still, even the grandest castles can fall, and so ours did when a large, flying Praetorian scattered us to the sides, forcing us to hurdle the small pile of bodies that we had felled around us. The body of a Collector crunched under my feet unpleasantly when I landed on its arm, but I kept my footing and rolled into the nearby cover.

Shepard, a meter from me behind her own crate, fired off a few rockets from her launcher, and we both frowned as they hardly registered against the monster. However, the ripple across its surface told me why: a barrier, and a strong one at that.

I hadn't seen where Jack and Grunt ran off to. Their status' still showed fine on the screen of my visor, and their location at the moment was unimportant in comparison to the giant flying above us, whose barrier, I might add, was barely reacting to the warps I was throwing against it.

"Jack!" Shepard's alarmed shout burst over the comms, ringing in my ears. "Get back to us! What are you doing?"

The direction of Shepard's face allowed me to locate the prisoner-turned-crewmate, who was now in danger of being surrounded by the husks that had drawn her too far out. Jack ripped through the husks easily, but more and more of the creatures were joining their brethren as they pushed the biotic closer to the corner of the plaza, a corner that was inconveniently out of sight of Mordin and Jacob. The sudden drop of a husk signalled that Zaeed had seen and was attempting to bail her out, but a sniper rifle can only reload so quickly, and the Praetorian had also turned towards Jack as an easy target.

There was a jumble of low, angry curses, and then Shepard was ordering, "Grunt, stay out of that thing's sight and go help Jack. Drag her back here if you have to."

Then the commander charged right into the Praetorian's line of sight, using flashy biotics and powerful warps to gain its attention. She fell into a dangerous game of cat and mouse as she zipped around, her only goal to keep the monster from turning to our two very vulnerable teammates. I helped where I could and returned to my previous endeavors of lowering its barrier. I even gave a shout of triumph when the barrier finally dissipated.

I shouted for another reason when the Praetorian dropped straight from the sky...and right on top of Shepard. The full bulk of the monster crumpled Shepard beneath it and then raised as if to drop for a second time. I didn't wait for that to happen. Gathering my biotics, I used them to push myself across the meters that separated us in a desperate dash to pull Shepard to safety.

It was not a move that came naturally—I was no vanguard—and I dropped out a touch too early, tripping myself over the strewn Collector bodies that still lay near the anti-aircraft gun. My hands skidded against dirt, followed by the rest of me, but I had made it far enough for something: I slammed my biotics into Shepard's prone form, tossing her full body away, before sketching out a desperate barrier as the Praetorian dropped again.

It burst my barrier in one hit, and I barely had time to scramble up to try and get out of the way before the thing descended again, crashing against a second hastily constructed barrier. I thought the Praetorian might give space to use its particle beam against me, but instead, it dropped again and again, shattering each barrier like it knew I would only be able to create them for so long. Not once did I manage to make it farther than a few pitched, horizontal steps before being forced down.

"Miranda!"

I heard Jacob's worried shout carry over the comms, but he was far away, and biotic use was quickly taking its toll, even without taking into account that my biotics hadn't been full strength to begin with. Blood had started to flood from my nose, trickling down to pool around my neck at the joint of my helmet's connection to my suit. My frantic scramble splattered the gore around the inside of my visor until a major portion of it was obscured, not that I could see well anyway with the pain starting to swell at my temples to burst in fireworks in front of my eyes. However, I could see enough to know that the square, cargo platform was maybe a meter away, if only I could make it into the shelter it provided.

A ghastly groan behind me signalled a group of husks had caught onto my predicament as well, and they rambled at an inhuman pace towards me. The creatures had the damning ability to find the weakest opponent on the field, and I cursed, pushing up to a knee, raising to try and run again, when a barrier that wasn't my own formed around me. I breathed out an audible sigh of relief when an arm strung its way beneath my own and hauled me forward.

Shepard biotically shot the two of us across the square and towards the buildings, tumbling through a doorway and into the cool darkness as I barely managed to hook my fingers beneath the chin of my helmet and rip it off in time to vomit to the side. _Disgusting_, I thought wrinkling my nose and scooting away. I leaned my head back to the stone wall, blinking away the black edges that had formed around my vision.

"Is everyone intent on making stupid decisions today?" Shepard growled, the anger radiating off of her even with her face clouded by her dark visor.

Though as all things with Shepard, or so I was starting to understand, her actions worked in opposition to her words. So as her mouth spewed harsh words, I noticed instead the gentle hand that had moved to my back and the squeeze of her other hand on my knee that might be interpreted, had I not known better, as concerned. Or maybe I was really just that dizzy.

"I couldn't let some bloody Collector ruin all my hard work," I coughed out in reply, and Shepard gave a strangled laugh. I tried to stand, reaching for my gun that had fallen to the side, but Shepard held me down with a hand on my shoulder (_with a pathetic lack of effort on her part_, I groused internally).

She pulled off her own helmet and set it to the side as she pulled out a protein bar, the ones we kept specially for biotics in the field, as well as the hose to the small water bladder installed in her hard suit. I wasn't even allowed to express my surprise that she'd filled her water for such a short mission before both items were in my hands, and Shepard was watching me intently.

I rinsed my mouth then managed a bite, trying to watch Shepard through half-shuttered eyes. My whole body felt _heavy_. With a jolt, my eyes flew wide again when I felt fingers on my cheeks; Shepard's gloveless hands were on either sides of my face. I couldn't even find the energy to be repulsed by her using her bare hands to wipe at the blood on my face.

"Oh no, you don't get to play the hero and then pass out. That's not how this works. You keep your eyes open until a doctor can look at that pretty head of yours," Shepard said, her palms warm against my skin.

I scoffed halfheartedly. "I'm not sure if I should regard that as demeaning or not," I muttered.

"You would," Shepard said with a grin. She gave me a pat on the knee before reaching for her helmet and putting it back on as well as one of her gloves. Then she used her right hand to punch through the glass in the window and position her gun in the space, though her left hand was left dangling to nudge me now and again to make sure I hadn't drifted off.

"You're not going to take down that Praetorian from here," I pointed out. "Just go."

I knew Shepard was rolling her eyes even if I couldn't see through her visor. My eyes glossed over as I fought again to keep my eyes open, but Shepard's nudge brought me back. Part of her colorful armband showed now that her gauntlet no longer covered it, and I stared intently at the design, not to mention the well defined muscles of her forearm. _Focus_, I reprimanded myself.

"You couldn't fight a kitten in this state," Shepard replied, offering no other argument.

I stared up at her, watching as she faced steadily away even as her free hand came every so often to rest on my shoulder when she didn't need it to fire. Very few times had I felt powerless in a fight; always there was something to fall back on: my gun, my biotics, my brain. A tool to be used, she'd called me. Well, Shepard had said I spoke of myself that way. Yet here I was, a tool that was temporarily broken, _useless_, and I wasn't being tossed away. In fact, the commander stood even closer than normal, brushing right against me as she crouched at the window, her hand unwavering in its grip on her pistol as she watched a shuttle arrive from the sky.

_I was wrong after all_, I thought, gazing at her silhouette with something like affection prickling in my chest. The sunlight shone on the other side of her visor, illuminating through darkened polycarbonate the profile of her face: the strong line of her nose, the curves of her mouth, a brow furrowed down in concentration. _Fate and luck have nothing to do with this_.

XXX

Garrus

I was right. I knew I was. _Bloody calculus, that's what so many of our missions come down to_, I reminded myself. The right thing to do was to save as many people as possible. It just didn't much feel like it when Collector ship fired up its thrusters and started away, taking with it the last vestiges of lightness on Samantha's face. Shepard gave an order over the comms for the _Normandy_ to not engage the ship and come land on the colony, and once the Collector was fully out of range, the shuttle pilot set us down next to Shepard's location.

Samantha was off the shuttle the moment it set down, briefly tossing over her shoulder that she was going to "look for them" before I could offer to help her. I sighed but set the rocket launcher aside as I climbed out of the shuttle into the glaring sunlight of Horizon.

"All clear," Shepard declared. "Mordin, I need you over here to look at Miranda."

I waited for the rebuttal, Miranda's disagreement that she didn't need to be examined, but none was forthcoming. _Not something minor, then_. Mordin complied quickly, emerging from the opposite building and crossing the plaza. He passed into the shadows of the maimed walls, and I made to follow.

"Shepard," I stated, getting her attention. She was crouched in a dark corner of the building, hovering next to Mordin over a dazed looking Miranda. Shepard's chin tilted up in acknowledgement.

"Thanks for the save. Better late than never," she joked.

"It's not like I own my own ship," I pointed out playfully. "And I did bring rockets."

"True. How _did_ you get here? You were on _Normandy_'s shuttle?"

"I grabbed a transport with some help from…" I trailed off, looking for where I'd last seen Samantha, but she was long gone. I understood why she wouldn't be feeling kindly towards us at the moment, and I just hoped her parents hadn't been on that Collector ship. "...an acquaintance. Then we radioed the shuttle to come get us once we got close."

"Could use more light, Shepard," Mordin interrupted, closing down his omni-tool.

"She's okay to move?" Shepard asked, eyes flickering to Miranda. When Mordin nodded, she turned to me. "Give me a hand?"

Blue eyes fluttered open in time to protest, "I can walk," Miranda muttered, pushing unsteadily to her feet. I squinted at the way she swayed and offered an arm out anyway, and Miranda's fingers circled around it after only one shaking step. I saw Shepard biting back a small smile as I led my human charge through the doorway and into the waiting sunlight.

By my eye, most of the team had gathered outside, the largest of whom was a krogan I recognized from the tank on Korlus. His gaze was sharp on me, but he must have assessed that I was obviously not an enemy because he stepped back, moving to stand to the side as I sat Miranda on the crate Mordin indicated. The salarian set about finishing his exam while Miranda tolerated the attention, the only flaw in her composed exterior the tightening fist she held in her left hand.

A human woman appeared with loping steps from around the anti-aircraft, her face falling immediately into a sneer when she saw the rest of us gathered. _And this must be Jack_.

"Aw, did the cheerleader get hurt? See, this is why you bring _real_ biotics," Jack jeered, even going to far as to poke Miranda in the arm as the rest of us tensed.

It was a testament to how out of sorts the Cerberus operative was that all I saw was a slight twitch in her jaw as a reaction. Shepard, on the other hand, went still and had just opened her mouth when the krogan beat her to it.

"Maybe she wouldn't have if you had stayed with us," Grunt rumbled in a low tone. His teeth flashed. "You're reckless."

"Yeah, well," Jack sputtered, mouth twisting into something unpleasant.

"'Yeah, well' is right. We'll meet you on the ship, Jack," Shepard replied, her voice ringing hard and vaguely threatening.

Jack sneered back. "Aye, aye, Commander," she agreed with a sarcastic salute and then stomped off. In the meantime, I noticed Grunt was even more obviously close to Miranda. Protective, even.

"When did that happen?" I muttered to Shepard at my side, pointing my chin at the human and krogan duo.

Shepard shook her head. "You missed a lot this week. And I have no idea," Shepard answered just as quietly. "I walked into Miranda's office this morning, and Grunt was just lying on her couch, reading."

"What did Miranda say about it?" I asked, arching a frontal plate in lieu of an eyebrow and staring at the human in question. Miranda had some color back in her cheeks and was arguing with our salarian teammate. _Well, she recovers quickly, at least_.

"Hardly anything. She was working like she barely noticed he was there," Shepard replied.

"Huh," I huffed, confused.

"Yeah, me too," Shepard interpreted with a laugh, bumping her shoulder against mine.

However, Miranda's sharp tone raising in volume drew our attention immediately away from our conversation, and Shepard took a step away from me and towards the warring pair.

"Professor, we do not have the time or resources to scan _every_ colonist," Miranda argued. "Name a more reasonable number."

"Large data sample imperative. You should understand. Or maybe not," Mordin chattered back. "Largest project just Commander Shepard."

Miranda's face curled into a sneer, catching the slight just as I had. "Just?" she snarled.

"If this is useful, you can scan as many colonists as you can manage until the end of the afternoon watch, Mordin," Shepard said, stepping in to defuse the situation. "After that, we're leaving."

Mordin nodded and turned away, speaking over the comms moments later to request Dr. Chakwas' help. Meanwhile, I kept my eyes on Shepard who couldn't seem to stop smirking at Miranda's disgruntled pursing of her lips and the way her eyes still heatedly followed the salarian. I looked between the two, curious. _Maybe I really did miss a lot this week_.

What I didn't miss was Miranda's face snapping into something impassive as she looked over my shoulder and how it jarred against the delight that simultaneously appeared on Shepard's.

"Commander," a grim-looking Ashley Williams greeted her as she approached. Her voice was cold, and her grip was still stubbornly on a drawn gun. I took a step closer to Shepard.

"Ash!" Shepard exclaimed, coming to life immediately and seemingly oblivious to the tension that had settled over the rest of us. "I'm so glad you weren't on that ship."

Shepard stepped forward like to embrace her, but Ashley mirrored the movement backwards. Shepard stilled, arms falling back to her sides with a frown.

"So you did know I was here," Ashley spoke coldly, her eyes jumping from face to face. The majority of the team had gathered around Shepard, but Ashley had less faces to focus on as most of them beat a hasty retreat once they sensed the turning of the conversation. Miranda was one that stayed, of course, and her face was almost too still, bracing against something to come. I stayed rooted as well, wary.

"I did," Shepard admitted slowly. "It came up in the debrief when we got the tip about Horizon a few days ago."

"And that didn't strike you as a little convenient? Almost as convenient as having been sent here by your XO only to have the colony attacked less than two weeks later?" Ashley growled.

"When taken out of context, perhaps," Miranda replied, every word dripping in ice despite the heat of the day.

Ashley scoffed in disbelief, and Shepard turned a hard face towards her XO. "You sent her here?" Shepard repeated.

Miranda sighed. "This is just a misunderstanding. The Alliance had already decided the location. All I did was move her deployment date up to get her out of the way," she explained.

"And I'm sure the commander would love to hear the reason why," Ashley jumped in, eyes alight like a bloodhound on the scent.

Miranda froze, face still carefully controlled but almost to the point of snapping with the strain. I sympathized but in another way; I was trying so hard to stay out of a conversation that was obviously not about me. Not to mention, Ashley had that righteous fire burning in her eyes, and that had never boded well for anyone.

"Shepard was to be kept from any distractions," Miranda replied.

"And because I discovered something she didn't want to share," Ashley rejoined, turning to direct her comment towards Shepard.

"Chief Williams," Miranda warned, desperate if she was resorting to titles.

"No, Commander, you deserve the truth about the people you're working for. Maybe then you'll come back to the Alliance, where you belong," Ashley cut in, brown eyes looking pleadingly at Shepard.

"Strange, because it seemed like it was Cerberus that saved this colony, not the Alliance and its malfunctioning gun," Miranda batted Ashley's earnestness to the side. Ashley scowled at her, the expression bouncing off of Miranda's smooth facade like water against stone. For a moment, too, I admired her; it was tiring how often the Alliance gave credit only to themselves, and Miranda's reproach was refreshing.

"Ash, I'm not sure what you're all worked up about. I'm not with Cerberus because we've suddenly become such good friends. I've got a job to do," Shepard said, the hard note of her tone belying the calm front she was still maintaining.

"Elise worked for Cerberus," Ashley blurted out harshly. "They've been manipulating you from the start, and now you've walked right into it."

The silence that followed such a statement was predictable but, nevertheless, sat heavy on the shoulders of all four of us, and I, a coward, suddenly found an intense interest in the grass at my feet.

"You're wrong about manipulation. If that were Elise's goal, we hardly would have killed her before she could be useful. Shepard only became famous _after_ Akuze," Miranda broke quietly into the moment, and her words twisted my stomach up inside me. Shepard's eyes glittered hard as she looked at Miranda, but she was still silent, mouth puckered tight.

"You said," I realized slowly, looking at Shepard, "that you wouldn't have joined the Alliance if it weren't for Elise. It seems unlikely that Cerberus would have been complicit in that."

"It's not impossible though. You know what Cerberus is capable of. They lie. And they apparently kill their own people," Ashley urged.

"I'm aware!" Shepard finally snapped.

"Then why don't you come back to the Alliance? Even your XO was keeping the truth from you," Ashley asserted, waving her hands at Miranda, who looked ready to do a little more than waving back, but Shepard's face was blank as she stared ahead.

"Now wait a minute," I stepped forward to interrupt, "At least Miranda is helping us stop the Collectors. That's more than I can say for you or the Alliance at the moment."

All three faces turned to me in surprise: for defending Miranda, for my outburst, for not having a joke handy to break the tension, maybe because of all three. I didn't care. I was angry at all of us, bickering and causing a scene in the middle of the plaza like a bunch of children. I saw Samantha standing in the crowd that had gathered to watch us. By the look of the two older humans that flanked her and the smile that stretched across her face, I gathered that she'd found her parents. She gave me a weak, awkward wave from the sidelines, and I managed something of the like in return.

"I _did_ try to fight the Collectors here," Ashley protested, "but I'd never work for Cerberus."

"Well that answers the question of whether you'd like to come with me," Shepard muttered.

A flash of regret etched across Ashley's face, and for a moment, I saw the softhearted soldier I'd met back on the first _Normandy_. Not soft towards me, of course, but she'd always been respectful of Shepard and that had gone a long way towards garnering my esteem. I liked to think Shepard saw through this newer, harsher, Ashley as well.

"Shepard, it's not you. It's–" Ashley bit her lip– "I'll always be Alliance. I can't change that, even for you."

"I get it," Shepard replied, her icy mask falling down like it hadn't been languishing from misuse for the past month. "Just go on, Chief Williams. We'll be off this colony and out of your hair soon enough."

The title struck hard, Ashley's mouth falling into an 'o' as the words made contact. She didn't reply back though, just gave Shepard a salute, turned on her heel, and marched off with not even a glance over her shoulder.

XXX

An hour later and the colony's medical center had collaborated with the _Normandy_ to set up scans for the remaining colonists. It gave everyone a place to gather to look for loved ones while also checking for any abnormalities the Collector technology may have caused. Plus, Mordin had shown interest in the data to improve his counter-measure. He said something about increasing the area of effect instead of it being limited to one person, or, at least, that's what I took out of it. I stopped listening once he started talking too fast.

In any case, the colonists were now organized in lines going up to the six medical professionals at a table. Three were from the colony, with added help from Dr. Chakwas, Miranda, and Mordin, and together they did quick omni-scans of each colonist. Anything unusual and the individual was sent inside to another doctor, but so far, everyone seemed to be suffering no effects from the seeker swarms.

The day was hot, so some industrious individuals had appropriated coolers and were handing out water to those waiting in line. Some of them were crying in relief at finding family members, while others cried at a loss until the whole thing felt like the worst kind of funeral wrapped in a festival.

Shepard came up beside me from where I was observing the event, and she was quiet in that brooding way of hers, no doubt already tired of the colonists' hero worship of her for saving them. Her eyes drifted between Miranda at the table and Ashley, who was speaking with some other soldiers.

"You've been quiet," I stated. "I can't tell if you're angry or not."

Shepard looked up at me, green eyes flashing. "Which one do you expect me to be angry with?"

"Either. Both," I answered.

"Or neither," Shepard sighed, uncharacteristically subdued.

"Really?" I peered down at her, searching, but I saw no passion bubbling just under the skin, no sign that she was lying.

"Ashley thinks she was doing the right thing by telling me. Whether that's true...is irrelevant at the moment," Shepard replied, picking at a nail absently in an attempt to avoid my eyes. "And my thoughts on Miranda–"

We both looked over at the woman in question in time to see a small, dark haired girl attack Miranda's leg with a hug after she finished her scan. Miranda's blue eyes went wide with panic as she stiffened under the touch, but she finally managed to awkwardly pat the child on the back. Shepard and I were close enough to see the girl give a gap-toothed, adoring smile back, even if Miranda didn't quite manage one in return.

Grunt appeared from behind them, casting a curious gaze on the exchange. The little girl's eyes widened in fright, and she scurried off to her parents. Grunt, however, was unfazed and apparently decided to mimic the child by wrapping Miranda in a hug of his own. The Cerberus operative gave an ungainly squeak, mouth falling in alarm, but she shocked me even further by seeming to patiently endure the contact before pushing the krogan away. She might even have smiled a little.

"–are complicated," Shepard finished.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

Shepard chuckled deep in her throat. "That I'm holding back anger until _after_ I ask her why she did it."

"That's...different for you," I admitted, tickled when I got Shepard to laugh once again. She faded into unexpected seriousness, however, and finally met my eyes.

"Do you ever get tired of following me, having to put up with my decisions?" she asked. Her eyes fell away from my face and down my armor, and she reached out touching briefly at the scarred abdomen of my armor. It had been patched, but after Omega and then Korlus, it was definitely time for me to buy a new breastplate. "I almost got you killed."

"I thought this wasn't an issue. You know I'm not upset about Korlus," I replied, scratching my neck.

"Maybe you should have been." Shepard shook her head, reaching to run her fingers through hair that was tangled and caked with the morning's sweat.

"What do you expect me to say? That I hate you for making a mistake?" I asked, the end of the words clicking with my irritation. "We've been through too much together for that."

She looked at me thoughtfully. "What would you do? If you were in command?"

My mandibles flicked out in shock. "Leadership roles haven't exactly worked out for me in the past," I answered, brushing her question off.

"Your team on Omega." Shepard's eyes darkened with understanding. "Still. Would you be here? Would you work with Cerberus and recruit–" She waved vaguely at our motley teammates, scattered throughout the area– "them?"

"Well, I wouldn't have recruited Wrex those years ago, and I definitely wouldn't have let Liara anywhere near the ship if I'd been making decisions back on the first _Normandy_. But you did, and look how it turned out," I replied. "I'm not sure it matters what I would do."

"It does." Shepard hummed and patted my shoulder. Eight bells played from our omni-tools: the end of the afternoon watch. Shepard offered a shrug to me, then whistled for the team to start moving out.

I stared after them, the last one to join the crowd heading back onto the _Normandy_, watching as our dysfunctional team somehow managed to look...put together. Or that's what I was hoping we looked like for the colonists we were leaving behind. _One thing's for sure_, I though, throwing one last glance at the blackened grass where the Collector ship had landed, _the _Normandy _is going to need a bigger gun_.

XXX

Miranda

"So you did find me," Shepard greeted as I passed through the lounge doorway

"It's not difficult if you ask EDI," I replied, the corners of my mouth starting up in the beginnings of a smile. I held up the sling I carried, concealing the datapad I'd also brought with me. "Dr. Chakwas said you didn't show up for your post-mission evaluation. We need to take care of your shoulder."

Shepard shrugged but flinched. "You said it was minor. It doesn't hurt much."

"Your body is your most important weapon, Shepard. You need to be more responsible about your injuries," I scolded.

"Pot meet kettle," Shepard said pointedly. "I'm one half-finished meal away from using my position of authority to make you eat a stack of pancakes."

"You could try," I challenged, managing to joke even as the thought made me ill. My biotics were almost to full strength again, so physically I was recovered. The actual eating part, however, was still a trial.

Shepard grimaced but let it drop and looked at my hands. "So, a sling?"

"For at least a few days. You need to make sure you move it as little as possible and ice it. A lot," I prescribed. "Otherwise Chakwas will forcibly immobilize it until you're healed."

"Yes, Doctor Lawson, ma'am," Shepard drawled, throwing a salute with her other arm.

I pursed my lips in amusement and settled her arm into the sling gently, leaning across her to secure the strap in the back. Her breath tickled softly against my neck as I worked, and my heartbeat shot up, leaving me lightheaded. The magnetism pulled between us even now and was becoming impossible to ignore, the kind of force that pulled us together with inevitability and reminded me that we could never just be nothing to one another—even if passive coexistence would be so much _easier_. We might be enemies or we might be friends, but we would never be _nothing_, not after I rebuilt her, not after this mission together. The thought filled me with selfish contentment—if I managed to ignore how different Shepard and my opinions likely were on the matter.

I smoothed the strap down in between her shoulderblades and shook my head, as much to clear my thoughts as to get the hair that had fallen into my face to move. The black strands went stubbornly right back, but before I could fix it myself, Shepard had reached up with her other hand to tuck it behind my ear, her fingers brushing along the shell of my ear. It was like she moved on instinct, Shepard's eyes widening only after she realized what she'd done. I froze, and Shepard yanked her hand back like I'd bitten her.

"I should've told you." The admission came out in a burst.

Shepard blinked up at me, frowning at the twist of the conversation. I revealed the datapad I'd brought in with me and placed it next to her.

"I downloaded the files on Elise for you," I offered. "If you want them."

"You said it would take weeks to get access to the files Jack wanted," Shepard said, raising an eyebrow. "But these were just lying about on the Cerberus server for anyone to find?"

I clasped my hands behind my back. "I may have prioritized this request," I admitted.

"Of course." She shook her head but otherwise was silent, staring absently at the counter she was leaning on with her good arm. The silence stretched as I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, waiting as she fiddled with the silken armband that was becoming a permanent fixture on her forearm.

"I wanted to tell you," I explained, breaking into the quiet once I realized she wasn't going to. "My mission here is to make sure that you succeed. I debated over the decision, but I was afraid it would break the trust that we'd–"

"Relax, I'm not upset with you, Miranda," Shepard interrupted. She stood and went behind the lounge bar, pulling out a red wine and two glasses. Shepard filled one and handed it to me before filling her own and taking a sip.

"Forgive me if I'm not entirely convinced," I replied. Her eyes shot to mine, and Shepard laughed, like _really _laughed, all the way from her belly and up through her throat until she was rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hands before wiping them on her pants.

"It is a change of form from my usual attitude, I'll admit," Shepard said, her lightness being taken over by a sober draining of her glass. She reached for the bottle and refilled. "She wouldn't even recognize me now. Elise. I'm a far cry from the woman she proposed to."

"She proposed to _you_?" I asked, as much from curiosity as to pull her from whatever dark path her mind had taken.

Shepard's smile flickered back. "I was the very image of a future blushing bride, as I'm sure you can imagine."

The white dress and wedding bells were foreign to scenery I had created around her in my imagination, but the blushing I could picture quite well. I wondered if Elise had loved it as much as I do.

"I...don't understand," I stated and was glad Shepard seemed to grasp my switch back in topics. This woman was obviously important to Shepard, so why the cavalier attitude? Where was the yelling, the raging, the flinging of biotics? I had been thinking of ways to make sure she stayed, didn't leave Cerberus, didn't leave me. I hesitated at my last thought, but it was true. I was becoming dangerously possessive of this person I had formed. Shepard had not been given; she was created—by me. I knew her in a way mothers don't even know their children, in a way Father hadn't even known me. And yet she might still try to walk away.

I shook my thoughts away. _I do not _own _her. She owes me nothing_, I reminded myself.

"Knowing Elise was part of Cerberus doesn't make me hate them more. It simply...reopens an old wound. And possibly made it deeper," she philosophized with another deep drink of her wine. "As for your part, well, should I be angry that you held back the knife? No. Keeping this from me was a mercy."

"So you're not angry," I summarized slowly.

She smiled in a way that managed to look condescending. "No, I'm not angry. At you, anyway. This time," she emphasized. "I'm willing to forgive this because of the circumstances, but I won't be controlled or manipulated. Not by you, not by Cerberus."

"So you believed Chief Williams? That we've been manipulating you from the start?" I asked, pausing to finally taste the wine she'd served. I was pleased to note she'd chosen one of my favorites. "I think you'll be disappointed when you finally read the files."

Shepard shook her head, the corners of her lips drawing up again. "No, that theory is a long shot. And even if Cerberus tried, they did such a piss poor job of it that it hardly matters," she replied. She peered across at me, hiding her lips with another drink from her glass. "So I know it hasn't been you, at least."

A short huff of a laugh escaped me. "Such faith in my abilities," I said, smirking. "Rest assured, if I were manipulating you, I would have at least stopped you from stealing my favorite shampoo and the assortment of other belongings that have gone missing from my room."

"Tell me you weren't the one who stocked my cabin and put a Cerberus logo on _everything_, then. I figured you owed me some unmarked shampoo." Shepard shrugged, hissing again when she moved her injured shoulder. She was leaning towards me, an easy smile on her lips, and I pulled just the slightest bit back, trying to cover the way my breathing shortened in my chest. "Besides, I had discovered that yours smells so much better than mine."

My heart stopped. Of course, of _all_ the things for her drunken mind to remember from what I was now calling That Night, she would remember that part. Heat crawled into my cheeks, but then went ever so much lower when, for a second, Shepard's eyes flickered down to my lips. When they came back up, they were full of uncertainty, and I was too, caught between wanting to retreat off the barstool or surge forward.

"Shepard?" Garrus' voice came through the doorway, and we both reeled back. I turned my head with a jerk to the side, hiding my face and biting the inside of my cheek while I focused on returning my breathing to normal.

"Oh," Garrus said, looking between the two of us. He rubbed at the back of his neck.

"I was just leaving," I offered, ignoring the nearly full glass of wine that still sat in front of me. I slid from my seat and made for the exit, forcing myself not to look back.

When I was back in my room, my fingers felt at my cheeks, touching at the warmth still concentrated there. I tipped my head back against the door with a sigh but jolted upright once more at the sound of an incoming message on my omni-tool.

**Miranda,**

**Perhaps hiring Miss Chambers will prove unnecessary after all. **

**TIM**

My gut twisted, and I dropped down into my desk chair, deleting the message quickly as my mind churned. The Illusive Man never was one to mince words with me. I knew what he meant, had the ability to read between the lines, and his mention of Miss Chambers was telling. Kelly Chambers had been hired as the yeoman and to evaluate the crew...as well as seduce the commander if events allowed. He was _complimenting _me.

"EDI?" I called.

"Yes, Operative Lawson?" EDI replied.

A sick feeling slid through me, and I stood furiously from my desk. "I want any and all recording to my room and office shut down," I ordered. "And you are to tell me if anyone overrides this order."

"Done," EDI responded. "Would you like to cancel recording in the commander's cabin as well?"

_Bloody AIs, able to read into things._ "Yes, EDI. Thank you."

I undressed quickly for bed and wondered how long it had been since someone other than my father had managed to make a compliment seem so violating.

* * *

**Wow, breaking that 100,000 word mark, and this chapter was one of the big points of the game. Sorry this took so long! I'm naturally a little nervous because this is supposed to be such a big turn for the game/this story. The team is slowly getting better at working together, but every new person throws a new wrench in the dynamic. And oh boy there are more team members to come. **

**Questions, comments, and constructive criticism is always welcome. Why do you think Shepard is asking Garrus about his confidence in her decisions? How do you feel about TIM's message to Miranda? Why in the world is this story so long? (Lol that's what I think every time I'm writing). **

**Can't wait to hear everyone's thoughts! Thanks for all the follows, favorites, and reviews!**


	17. Black and Blue

**I know what you're thinking: there can't possibly be a new chapter this soon right? Wrong. This is not a drill.**

* * *

Ch. 17: Black and Blue

Miranda

The smell of the ocean followed me all the way out of my nightmare and onto the couch where I'd curled up. They were getting worse the closer we got to Oriana's transfer date, dreams of home, dreams of Oriana still stuck there. I pulled my robe closer around my shoulders and revelled in the heat soaking into my fingers from the mug they were wrapped around, keeping my eyes trained on the stars racing past me through the window. Space—sterile, dark, and as opposite of my previous home on Earth as I could get. I breathed deeper into my cup, hoping the smell of coffee could help chase away memories of beaches, heat, sand, and expectations that no wave had ever managed to wash away.

Even the coffee was my way of breaking away. I'd never been allowed to have it. _Stimulants are unnecessary for someone of your caliber_, the annoying cook had always insisted. Now I drank it religiously–such a predictable form of rebellion, but one I couldn't manage to break. It was the first thing I'd done when I'd run. A blue-eyed toddler babbling up at me from her place on my hip, I'd ordered a cup of coffee to-go at the first place we came to before whisking the two of us away again in the shuttle. Even now, sometimes the smell of coffee would bring back the feeling of the soft warmth of my sister pressing into me, the trust in that little gaze. I had treasured it during the weeks we had together, holed up in an apartment I'd paid for with cash on a backwater planet while I'd devised a better plan. I fought back tears at the memory of the last time she'd seen me, tiny fingers reaching out, before being placed in Cerberus protection. The Illusive Man had said she'd be safer if she didn't know me, and I'd agreed. But sometimes, well, I wondered.

"EDI?" I called.

"Yes, Operative Lawson," EDI answered.

"Status report," I ordered.

"All fourteen crew members scheduled are at their stations. Sixteen remain asleep. Several squad members are still asleep, though five have arrived at breakfast. Biometric scans are within normal range for ninety-three percent of the crew. Of the remaining seven percent, Shepard is showing symptoms of prolonged sleep deprivation, and hormonal imbalances indicative of an irregular emotional state are present in Operative Taylor and yourself, Operative Lawson. Data analysis suggests that you have remained in a state of high stress for the past forty-five days," EDI reported. _Lovely_, I sighed to myself. "Mission warm-up remains scheduled for 0730, and the physical data for the Collectors has been incorporated into the simulator, as requested."

"Thank you, EDI," I murmured.

I glanced back at my bed, hours cold, and then past it to the clock showing 0630. I sighed and headed for the bathroom, pulling out my rarely used make-up kit to dab concealer carefully beneath my eyes: blue eyes, the same as Father's that chased me through my dreams. I shut them quickly, familiar hatred constricting my chest, before opening them again and staring intently at the mirror. _Not his eyes, _my _eyes. And Oriana's too._

"Miranda!"

I whipped around to see a large shape dominating the doorway to my bedroom.

"Grunt?" I scowled. _Why was this happening more often? _ "My door was locked. How did you get in here?"

He shrugged, large shoulders rolling. "It was unlocked," he said simply.

"I'm not dressed," I said, pulling my robe even closer. Grunt just looked at me blankly, not moving. "That means _get out_," I ordered and pointed to the door.

Understanding dawned on his face, and he nodded, turning in the doorway but settling on the couch instead of actually leaving. I sighed and shut the bathroom door, quickly pulling on my uniform, brushing out my hair, and pulling it back into a loose bun before leaving again.

Grunt looked smaller and misshapen in casual, ill-fitting clothes instead of his armor. We had stopped quickly at a port yesterday for emergency supplies, materials to fix Garrus' armor, a bed for Grunt, and some basic clothing for both Grunt and Jack. Though, apparently, I shouldn't have left Shepard in charge of the clothes shopping.

"These don't fit," Grunt said obviously, pulling at a shirt that pooled around him like a dress, difficult to do on a krogan.

I sighed. "Shepard picked them, not me. I told you to go with her."

"I got distracted by a weapons shop." He shrugged again.

"Operative Lawson," Mordin announced himself, joining Grunt in my office. _Bloody hell,_ I swore. _I must really be losing my edge if my office is starting to feel like the morning after a slumber party_. Mordin, however, seemed completely unaffected by my glare, though he was probably the last person I wished to see this morning. His habit of bringing up inappropriate subjects was becoming frustrating, even though I suspected he was teasing. He gained entirely too much satisfaction at prodding me.

"New project in mind. Research suggests microfiber weave possible to increase commander's muscle strength. Will need materials," Mordin proposed.

"And how exactly do you plan to implement something like that without side-lining Shepard for a week or more?" I asked, scoffing.

Mordin paused, his fingers finding his chin. "Will run second round of tests. Still need resources."

"You couldn't have mentioning this yesterday when we were still at a port?" I queried, exasperated as I typed myself a quick note on my omni-tool.

"Data inconclusive yesterday," Mordin explained.

"Fine, I can handle that this week–"

"–Miranda? Oh, I didn't expect so many people to be in here already," Garrus said, concerned, from the doorway, his hands occupied by a red tray.

I narrowed my eyes at the sight of him, a thought coming to me. "Shepard," I growled.

"Yeah," Garrus agreed looking at Grunt. "You really should have given her a different task. Those look horrible. Come to think of it, Grunt, the shirt Shepard bought for me would probably fit you."

"Look, I did my best," Shepard defended, appearing behind the group as Grunt nodded at Garrus enthusiastically. She rearranged one of the two trays of food she was carrying then caught sight of my face, grimacing in return. "Alright, everyone out. I need Miranda. And you three should be getting your gear ready."

"Yes, Mother dearest," Garrus muttered with a smile under his breath, and Shepard shot him a quick, disgusted look.

"Mother?" Grunt asked, looking between the two of him, his eyebrows furrowing.

"Quit it, Garrus," Shepard snapped, then turned to Grunt. "And don't you dare start calling me that."

We could hear Garrus laughing all the way to the elevator after the three of them shuffled quickly through the door. Shepard set one of the trays down in front of me. I frowned at her and she held up her hands in surrender.

"Easy there. It wasn't me. Your locked door is sacred to me," she said. When I quietly huffed my disbelief, she explained, "You forgot to lock it after your five millionth coffee refill last night. I was sitting at the back table."

"Oh." I deflated.

"Just think–" Shepard mouth twitched up at the corners. "–you got to reinforce your 'open door' policy."

"I have _never_ had an open door policy," I disagreed vehemently. I watched the commander try to force down a smile, and I sighed. "Oh, you were joking."

She nodded. "Not a very good one, apparently. C'mon, eat that," she ordered with a wave to the tray she'd set down. "We need to get to the rehearsal. We're trying out the new teams today, remember?"

I pulled the black, plastic tray closer, noting the stark contrast to Shepard's which held a monstrosity of pancakes, muffins, and scrambled eggs. Instead, mine was a carefully constructed selection of yogurt, granola, and an assortment of fruits, though there was a small muffin snuck onto it as well. I scowled to see a cup of water instead of coffee.

Shepard surprised me by setting her tray down on the opposite side of my desk and planting herself in one of the chairs before beginning to shovel her breakfast in her mouth, only stopping to look at me pointedly. I picked up my fork and started with the fruit, stabbing at a piece of honeydew melon we'd bought with the grocery restock yesterday.

When she had cleared her plate in a herculean effort to vacuum up every morsel on the tray in less than five minutes and I had at least eaten enough to appease her, I joined Shepard in the elevator to the cargo hold.

"Your hair is up today," Shepard said, her gaze feeling physically hot against my neck. She squinted closer at me. "And you're wearing makeup."

"I'm not sure why that's worth noticing," I replied.

Shepard gave a soft laugh. "There's plenty about you worth noticing."

"I–" the words were choked in my throat as I just started at her, genuinely caught off guard.I didn't have a chance to ask more as the elevator doors opened, and Shepard bounded away, joining the clash of bodies waiting at the edges of the hold.

_Damn it, why does she _do _that?_

I stopped by the locker where I'd stored my armor in anticipation of this morning, and I strapped the shiny, black pieces on quickly over my white uniform. Within minutes, Grunt, Zaeed, and a very disgruntled but now well-armored Jack stood in front of me, waiting for orders for the morning's practice. I stared at the three, now members of the new Team Black (Shepard had been rather unimaginative with the names). They were not who I was expecting Shepard to place with me, though they stalked off willingly enough when I started the simulation for them. In Jack's case, I suspected it was more about getting away from me than actually listening to my orders.

We walked through simple drills, not enough to really exhaust anyone but enough that their muscles wouldn't be cold when we dropped onto Haestrom. Garrus fought through enemies with his own team, Blue, on the other side of the hold, but I quickly lost sight of them. I focused on my own movements, relishing in the flow of my biotics around me to help burn off the anxiety of the morning.

"Does Jacob seem distracted to you?" Shepard asked, appearing at my side. I pulled off to the side and looked over at the soldier in question, pretending to evaluate him.

"He's not on my team. Why aren't you asking Garrus?" I replied, and Shepard's face snapped around to me.

"Damn it, Lawson," Shepard growled, so unexpectedly that I couldn't hide the hurt that cantered across my face at the change in names. "Is it so hard to just answer me?"

"I have done everything you've asked, Commander," I said, staring forward at my team.

"Miranda." Shepard's voice was softer now, and I finally turned to look at her. "I know you aren't a fan of the idea to split the team. But I trust you to be one of the team leaders, so I need you on board anyway. Not making things harder over simple questions."

"He's distracted," I answered, waving at the armor clad soldier fighting his way past us. He was doing...fine, but he was a noticeable tick slower. No doubt it was caused by my forwarding a report containing a lead on Jacob's missing father to him last night. Of course he was unfocused. "I imagine his team leader will present a request from him at some point today."

Shepard's gaze was glued to me, disconcerting in its intensity. "I suppose I don't want to know how you know that," she added simply. "Should I worry about bringing him on the mission today?"

I shook my head. "He's always excelled at following orders, no matter the circumstance."

"You would know," Shepard murmured, and I cringed. I could feel her eyes burning into me, and I raised an eyebrow at her, already steeling myself for what I knew would follow. "I heard you and he used to have a more intimate relationship," she admitted. "Impressive that he still shows such respect around you."

"And why wouldn't he?" I bit the words out, irritated at her hedging around the subject. I eyed her coldly and accused, "No doubt the rumors have warped the details."

"Kasumi does like to share the fruits of her eavesdropping. And you _are_ one of the most popular topics below decks," Shepard said with a smirk and a shrug. "But I merely meant that it's harder to be professional when someone has seen you naked."

"I don't usually find it that difficult," I replied, staring straight at her. A beat went by, and her eyes widened.

She coughed to clear her throat. "That's not fair."

I laughed, and the terseness of the moment broke, Shepard smiling in grateful relief. We both looked away, and I was thankful that I had the excuse of evaluating my new team members. Jack was ripping through holographic Collectors, her wide smile seeming out of place amongst the violence, while Grunt charged along a few feet behind. I scanned the area and eventually found Zaeed crouched on top of some crates with a slight shimmer that indicated Kasumi was next to him. _Hm, perhaps it may be worthwhile to get a tactical cloak for Zaeed, _I mused. It would be useful for a sniper.

Jack stopped her storming through the enemies when a stray 'bullet' pinged against her barrier, the program registering friendly fire. The biotic whipped around immediately, eyes narrowing on the culprit as she stomped over to the other team and ignored that the simulation had 'killed' her.

"Get distracted over here?" Garrus asked, pulling off his helmet.

"No, we were simply discussing Shepard's ill-advised decision to place Jack on my team," I said, seizing the opportunity to change the topic. I looked at the turian with a telling glance before returning to watch Jack light up with her biotics, pointing towards Jacob. _Oh god_. I pressed a palm to my forehead, two seconds from intervening should she actually attack a squadmate.

Garrus scoffed at me, a low chuff amidst his heavy breathing. "You think I would have been better? I shot people like her on Omega."

"At least you know the culture," I stated.

"The culture? I was on the _opposite _side of the culture," Garrus protested. "What about you? Cerberus." He pointed a talon at the logo of my uniform.

"Being labeled a terrorist is completely different from criminal activity," I argued. "Jack and I have nothing in common."

We watched as Grunt blocked Jack's rampage forward, his massive arm pulling her up her short. I sighed in relief, though I still dreaded the moment I would have to try to rein her in. At least a confrontation over authority could be put off a while longer.

Shepard smirked, pointing. "That's why she's on your team. Jack responds well to Grunt. And Grunt responds well to _you_," Shepard said to me. "The teams are also about building communication, and you and Jack need the most work."

"You're one to talk. I don't imagine the two of you are off butchering the assembly of model ships together," I retorted.

"You know, an Alliance XO never would have given me such attitude. And I resent the fact that you make fun of my hobbies," Shepard said, though real venom absent from her voice. "Also, we're bonding over our mutual hatred of Cerberus fuckery. You'd be surprised how that brings people together."

My jaw tightened. "Wonderful," I replied, closing my eyes.

"Speaking of Cerberus and its tendency to screw people over," Shepard began, "EDI told me Jack's files came in last night."

_Damn it_, I cursed, and turned to the commander. "I planned on giving them to you today. I just wanted to bring a situation to your attention first."

"Offering up information willingly?" Shepard jested, though it sounded forced combined with her stiffened posture. The commander turned just slightly, enough that Garrus caught the cue to leave, pulling his helmet back on to join the warm-up. "I'll say that's an improvement at least."

"I took the liberty of looking the files over," I revealed.

"Because giving them directly to their intended recipient never would have crossed your mind?" Shepard interjected with words as sharp as metal barbs.

I ignored the jab. "I'm glad I did. There's something about them. I can't place it," I explained, pinching at the bridge of my nose. The cell on Pragia had been tasked with exploring methods to improve human biotics, which sounded vaguely familiar, though I'd found nothing to soothe my unease when I'd read through the files.

"You think they've been tampered with?" Shepard asked.

I looked at her with exasperation. "Tampered with? No," I dismissed. "There's just something at the edge of my memory." Shepard was looking at me with barely concealed skepticism, so I added, "Something important."

"Well, you can mention it to her when you give her the files," Shepard said. I imagine she was trying to pull the statement off with nonchalance, but she gave herself away when she snuck a glance at me from the corner of her eyes. I stared at her.

"You want me to do it?" I asked with a small frown.

"Well you are her team leader now," Shepard pointed out. "And you're the best person to answer any questions she may have."

"As you wish," I replied, pulling my lips back into a false smile.

"Now would be good," Shepard added. I snapped to face her, and she held out a hand to stop my next words. "The warm up is almost over, and we'll be heading out soon. And I have something planned for later, so you should give them to her now."

I eyed her suspiciously, but she remained watching the team instead of catching my eyes. I turned with a sigh and retreated quickly to my office to grab a datapad. I downloaded the files off of my console and onto the portable device but hesitated when I made to cross my doorway. Surely Shepard hadn't really meant I had to give them to Jack personally? I could just as easily slip downstairs to place this on her bed.

I paced into the elevator and hit the button for engineering instead of the cargo hold, but when I arrived, I could see the team below through the window, already filing out towards the elevator for any last minute preparations. I cursed and turned, hurrying down the staircase, my heels playing a marcato beat against the metal.

My eyes adjusted quickly to the low light of Jack's 'room', and I found her bed shoved up against the back corner, her old cargo parts and whatever that was that passed as a shirt slung carelessly on top of a messy cot, unnecessary now that she'd been equipped with a new suit of armor. The extra outfits that Shepard had bought with her yesterday were still in the bag, crumpled and shoved to the other side of the space. Jack's room was devoid of almost anything else, which, honestly, I should have expected since we'd retrieved her from a prison ship. Yet, the lack of personal effects was unsettling.

"Looking for something?"

I froze in the act of placing the datapad on top of her clothes, turning my shoulder just enough to see Jack stopped on the bottom steps of stairs.

_Damn it, Shepard_.

I was likely giving the commander too much credit, but it certainly felt like she'd let the team go early on purpose.

"No," I said, casting my gaze around the area to make it clear that there wasn't much to look _for_. "Just leaving the files you asked for."

Jack lunged forward, ripping the datapad from my hands and whirling to land on her bed. I took a step for the stairs, for escape, but Jack's voice stopped me.

"Guess I'll have plenty of time to read since I won't be on the mission," Jack said with a sneer. "Which I'm guessing is your doing, huh, oh mighty leader?"

"No," I denied, surprised. "I didn't know. My input wasn't asked for."

I tried one more time for the stairs. I wasn't trying to _please_ Jack, naturally, by removing myself from her space, but I wanted away, to not have to deal with this before heading down to Haestrom, no matter what Shepard had said.

"Guess I'm not surprised," Jack replied. "Though I didn't expect your type to roll over so quickly."

I bristled at the implication and lost interest in retreat. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean," I snapped.

"Please," the tattooed miscreant sneered.

"It's called following orders, Jack," I replied. "Which I suggest you do if you ever want to go on a mission."

"And why should I? Seems like you're the ones who wanted _me _here. If Shepard wants me to rot down here, it's her loss." Jack waved my comment off. "Or maybe I should just leave at the next stop. I've got my amp now. Who's going to stop me?"

_It wouldn't be that hard_, I thought, but then another annoying voice reminded me, _Teams are about building communication_. I rolled my eyes at the imitation of Shepard my mind produced.

"Do you have family, Jack?" I asked. "Friends?"

She rose from the bed, lips twitching. "You know the answer to that," she spat, pointing at the logo on my chest. "And Shepard already tried to win me over with the 'fighting for humanity' bullshit, so you can quit right now. I don't give a fuck about other people, and they don't give two shits about me."

"That wasn't my point," I replied through clenched teeth, barely holding onto the illusion of civility. "I'll admit Cerberus has better things to spend its resources on than recapturing you should you choose to leave. Yes–" I waved a hand– "we would come for you eventually. But until then, where would you even go?"

"Like I would even tell you," Jack scoffed, taking a step even closer with a balled fist.

_Damn it. Why am I even bothering?_ "Shepard is freely offering her protection, but you'll have to actually do something to earn it," I continued. This time I didn't bother to hide the condescension in my tone. I wanted this conversation to be done, but I also didn't want to be shooed away by _her_.

Jack actually laughed. "Her protection? I know soldier types like her. People like me die for the 'greater good', and then she still gets all the glory," Jack sneered.

I froze, narrowing my eyes. "Shepard isn't like that."

"Look at you." Jack chuckled still. "Whipped like a bitch."

"Hardly," I sneered with a roll of my eyes. "I'm only pointing out that all of the people Shepard cares about tend to come out miraculously unscathed. In a contradictory turn of events, the woman I rebuilt to save humanity is remarkably selfish. When it comes to her crew, anyway."

"That still doesn't mean I'll follow her blindly like the rest of you sheep. This is bullshit. You–" She motioned at me, her voice growing louder– "are full of bullshit!"

"Then let me make one thing clear," I snapped, reaching the end of my patience. Here I'd tried to reason with her, _communicate_ like Shepard had asked, and for what? "Every day you spend here being bloody useless is a waste of food, a waste of space, and a waste of my time. I can find someone else to help us if I have to."

"Useless? _You _wanted _me_. You know you won't find a biotic that can do what I can. Cerberus made sure of that," Jack sneered, her voice raised so she was almost shouting.

"Well it obviously wasn't enough," I returned, crossing my arms.

Jack was quickly too close, her face scrunched up and snarling inches from mine. "You have no right. You have no idea what they did to me," she growled.

Perhaps it was because she was _right there_ that I couldn't school my expression quickly enough, couldn't roll off the biting retort that came so naturally to me. But my head was filled with flashes of sterilized tools, straps on my wrists, my ankles, my neck, and doctors with expressionless faces. I smelled antiseptic.

"Or maybe you do," Jack continued, lips curling to show stark white teeth in a cruel grin. "Tell me: what _was_ the price of perfection?"

My biotics flared: a warning for this too-loud delinquent who thought she could comment on things she had no business deducing. I hated her. From her tiny body riddled with tattoos to her inability to never just _do as she's told_, I had an active loathing that was curling in my stomach like some poisonous creature, ready to strike. I hated how she smirked at me, how she could be completely worthless and, yet, I was expected to try to keep her around. _Her_, when I was acutely aware that _I_ lived on thin ice, cracking around me until one day it would completely give way and Shepard would be gone, and I would have failed.

Still, it was easier than I imagined to let my biotics fade away again, to fall into a straight posture and clasp my hands behind my back, easy to look composed. "You can find me in my office if you have questions about the files," I said, looking straight at her before turning on my heel.

I started on the stairs, my footfalls now an angry cacophony as I ignored that Jack's biotics had activated around her as well. _I'm not retreating_, I told myself. Jack was just waiting for a chance, for me to slip up and give her a reason. She wanted me to prove that I wasn't worth the trust Shepard had placed in me. But I would not give her the satisfaction.

**XXX**

Garrus

_I'm never complaining about the heat on Palaven ever again_, I groused in my head. The compound on Korlus had felt cooler than this planet with its crazy shield-frying radiation, and even though I, like all turians, naturally had metallic carapaces to deal with the radiation, I was still careful to skirt around the direct sunlight and never let my shield go all the way down. A hand held up to cover my eyes provided no relief, and I quickly dropped it and surveyed the area through squinted eyes. _Tali, damn it, you'd better appreciate_.

The quarian in question was just on the other side of this block, albeit cornered by a horde of geth. I peered through my scope, zooming in and out of different sections of the area. The seeming eternal twilight of this portion of planet made the lighting tricky. Not much difference in either direction, I determined, but I could see a red suited quarian just ahead. I stood from my crouch, motioning to Shepard and the others that this section, at least, was clear.

"Kal'Reegar, Migrant Fleet Marines," the quarian gasped out as we reached him. "You're Shepard, right? We spoke on the radio."

"Is Tali still alive?" I burst out first, sliding into the cover next to him. A slew of rockets slammed against the other side, but the concrete blocks we hit behind held for the moment.

"She should be. Tali'Zorah is in the observatory, and the geth haven't been able to get through the door," Kal'Reegar explained. I heard the rattle of his intake of breath, and then he dragged himself upward to fire a rocket before collapsing back down. Shepard poked her head over the cover as well but dropped sharply back down when bullets peppered against her shield.

"What can we do?" Shepard asked, her eyes drawn by Miranda scrambling somewhat gracefully on all fours to join us. I watched her more subtly, but I had always been bad at masking my emotions. And today I was worried. Miranda was usually detached during missions but never quiet, never this on edge. It was starting to make me twitchy. "EDI, what's the field look like?"

Shepard shook her head at the silence, and I reminded her, "The radiation blocks orbit to surface communications. We're on our own down here."

"The middle is like walking into a slaughterhouse. The Colossus has a clear shot at you and you'll be hit by the rest of the geth on both sides," Kal'Reegar jumped in helpfully, though his voice sounded high and strained. "The left gives you more cover, but your back is completely exposed. Which is how I got shot. The right side will give you height, a good perch to hit the Colossus with, but your back is still exposed and there's a lot of geth that way."

"You were shot? Your suit is ruptured?" I asked, scanning him for any obvious tears. A suit rupture was almost a death sentence for a quarian, especially if left too long. Next to me, Miranda began rummaging in the medical pouch strapped at her waist, pulling out syringes, examining them, and putting a few back.

"Ruptured, yes, but the battle seals clamped down and I'm loaded with antibiotics. I'll make it long enough," Kal'Reegar replied. Though impossible to tell through the mask, I was left with the impression that he was gritting his teeth.

"How big is the hole?" Miranda questioned, never raising her eyes from her task. When Kal'Reegar stared at her instead of answering, she finally glanced up to snap at him with obvious impatience. "The rupture? How big is it?"

"Smaller than a credit chit," Kal'Reegar finally gasped out.

Miranda nodded and pulled what looked to be a square of plastic sheeting from the pouch.

"You have a suit patch?" Kal'Reegar asked, cocking his head, as Miranda peeled a layer away from the black square she held.

"You do?" Shepard asked, equally as shocked.

Miranda steadily gazed back at them both. "When I was informed that we'd be acquiring a quarian teammate, I made the necessary purchases," she explained. "This will secure it better than the emergency seals." Kal'Reegar pointed her towards the hole located on his side, and Miranda lined up the patch, stopping only to uncap one of the syringes she'd pulled out.

"You realize you can't give him your normal medicine," I interrupted.

The glare I received was strikingly cold, blue eyes slicing through me. "If you think me that incompetent, I do wonder how I didn't kill you on Korlus," Miranda replied, turning back to her work and depressing the syringe into her quarian patient.

"Right," I said, immediately chagrined. I could see Shepard grinning at me even through the tint of her visor. "Of course you've had dextro medicine this whole time."

"Alright, back to saving Tali," Shepard redirected us. "Our best bet would be to split and take each side. It decreases the chances of the geth flanking either team but, unfortunately, doesn't eliminate it."

"I've still got a rocket launcher left. I can distract them from here while you go," Kal'Reegar offered, gripping his gun hard.

"No," I said before anyone else could. Shepard's head turned slowly to me. "Tali asked us to protect him."

"I'll stay with him and watch the rear," Miranda answered, but Shepard was already shaking her head. I, too, stared at her, wondering why the Cerberus operative would ever be the one to volunteer to stay.

"That's basically leaving you here alone, Miranda. It's too risky," Shepard countered.

"Don't insult me," Miranda shot back. Really it was Kal'Reegar who should be insulted, but I resisted the urge to point that out. "We have height and cover. I can handle this."

"Maybe I should just stay instead?" I offered.

Miranda's face went from determined to downright vicious so quickly my stomach did a little flip. That was so clearly the _wrong _thing for me to say, and it was only emphasized by Shepard's added, "Really, Garrus?"

"Will stay with Operative Lawson," Mordin offered into the tension. We all looked at him in surprise, but he just grinned in that odd way of his. "Likely not very helpful. But good conversation. Want to finish discussion on unique biotic applications."

Miranda's eyebrows shot up, a pink tint to her cheeks betraying her usually cool facade, and then she was quickly punching a code into her omni-tool. Her visor re-tinted seconds later, and she finally gave a nod of consent before looking to Shepard for confirmation. The commander sighed.

"Stay focused, Doc," Shepard warned. "Alright, split into teams Black and Blue, just like we practiced this morning. Black with me on the left, and Blue will punch through to the perch on the right. Let's go."

Grunt and Zaeed joined Shepard as she rolled out of cover and stormed to the nearest pillar, careful to keep them out of sunlight as much as possible. Kasumi and Jacob looked to me, and I nodded, gripping my rifle with determination despite the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. My first time leading others since..._since you got your whole team slaughtered like drugged varren_. I could feel eyes on me, and I did my best to ignore them, instead focusing for a last moment on Kal'Reegar.

"You stay alive," I ordered him, then turned to march off with my team in tow.

By the time we made it halfway, my gun was so hot I could feel it through my gloves. Ejecting the thermal clips often kept the rifle functioning for now, but I shuddered to think of the damage I was going to have to fix back on the _Normandy_. The weapons of my teammates weren't faring much better: Jacob had actually completely abandoned his pistol on the ground. To make things worse, it took much more effort to kill a geth than it did an organic, a fact which I had learned years ago, but that Jacob and Kasumi hadn't expected.

Geth didn't stop moving because they'd been shot in the leg. They didn't feel pain. A bullet to the knee wouldn't even cause a limp unless it managed to blow the whole limb off. A kill-shot was merely an annoyance in some cases, and that lesson was reinforced when a supposed-to-be-dead geth trooper wrapped its metal fingers around Kasumi's leg and dragged her down.

Luckily, Jacob and I disabled it before Kasumi was seriously hurt, but she was moving slower after. Was I supposed to have warned them about how to fight geth? Was it not obvious? It wasn't like Shepard had given a tutorial all those years ago either. We had just learned quickly in battle. But this felt completely different, now that I was _responsible_ for them. I knew how to lead, had done it before, but everything felt so out of sync after…

"Night, night!"

Miranda's usual cocky comment refocused me on our charge through another wave of geth. It was comforting, in fact, to know that, despite whatever was obviously bothering her, her head was still in the game. Even if mine felt like it wasn't. In fact, the same could be said for many of the team today. Something was just slightly off, had been since Horizon. I wondered if meeting the Collectors head on had finally been a wake-up call for everyone, that this was real, that this was incredibly dangerous.

_Stop it, you're here to get Tali_, I reminded myself. The quarian's name became a mantra, repeating through my head as I moved forward. A quick glance behind me showed that the geth had indeed tried coming up behind us but were being waylaid by the rearguard we'd left behind.

I released almost a whole clip into the geth nearest to me before grabbing its gun and ripping it from its hands. I jabbed my left hand forward, pulling back my thumb to release an overload. The android crumpled and fell before me, some liquid spilling out of its hydraulic systems to splash against my shoes and steam in the heat.

The fight was over half an hour later. Twelve minutes to finally reach the perch, two minutes to overload the Colossus' shield, four minutes for rockets to completely demolish it, and the remaining twelve minutes to mop up the few smaller geth units left, pinching them mercilessly from both sides. It took only a minute for me to rush up to the door Tali was protected behind. The rest of the team straggled up quickly after.

Shepard looked over at me as she approached the door. "Tali? You in there?" Shepard called, pressing at the locked mechanism until it beeped, though still remained closed.

"Shepard? You made it through! I'll get the door," Tali's voice drifted, muffled, through the metal.

The two parts rolled back, revealing a dark room lit partially by electronic displays. Tali stepped forward, but Shepard remained at a distance after crossing the threshold, looking around her surroundings warily.

"Garrus," Tali said, warmth suffusing her voice.

"I'm glad you're okay," I replied. I hugged her, though I felt a bit awkward, and was relieved when she returned the contact. We were old friends, after all. Not that much had changed. Hopefully.

"I could be worse," Tali answered. "But I'm not thanks to you all. Shepard?"

The commander turned, the only one who still hadn't untinted her visor upon entering the room. She kicked at the body of a geth.

"What happened here?" Shepard asked.

"The Admirals deemed research on this system's star to be important. They knew it was risky, but...It was supposed to be worth it," Tali explained. Her voice sounded tight, shaky with grief, but she didn't look away or turn her head to the side, usual tells of shame. Then again, it was easier for Quarians to shadow their feelings if they didn't want them known. Their visors did most of the work for them. "I'm glad you showed up when you did. How did you know I needed help?"

"I didn't," Shepard admitted. "I wanted to ask you to join me again. Rescuing you was just a happy side benefit."

"Yes," Tali said, putting her hands on her hips.

"Yes?" Shepard asked.

"I'll join you. I completed my mission as asked, and now those bosh'tet Admirals can go to hell. Some of this team were my friends," Tali mourned, looking at the handful of quarian bodies scattered in the room. "Where is Kal'Reegar? Did he…?"

"He's alive," I confirmed. "We left him with Miranda."

"Who?" Tali asked, turning to Shepard.

"My XO. You met her on Freedom's Progress," Shepard explained.

Tali went stiff, reaching for her shotgun and heading for the door before I could think twice about stopping her. "You mean the woman who tried to steal a sick quarian? Are you insane?" Tali shouted.

I jogged after her. "Relax, Miranda fixed his suit. He's fine," I tried.

"Forgive me if I don't trust some Cerberus…"

Tali trailed off at the sight of Miranda, with Kal'Reegar's arm slung around her shoulders for support, shuffling their way to us with Miranda's barrier shimmering around them to protect from the radiation. Mordin walked along too, chatting happily alongside them.

"You're wrong," Miranda was saying, her eyes fixed on her feet. "That kind of gene therapy has been tested, and it failed."

"Didn't have me. Interesting implications, if proven," Mordin contested. "Failure not fatal. Simply...inconvenient."

"It's not interesting enough to let you try it on one of the crew, Mordin," Miranda argued. "And if I had planned on modifying Shepard's genetics, I would have done it when Dr. Wilson suggested it two years ago. I don't see him still pestering me about it."

"Dr. Wilson was your associate on Lazarus Station?" Mordin asked.

"Yes, and I shot him," Miranda replied. Mordin frowned at her, and I bit back a smile.

"Shepard letting in just anyone these days?" Tali commented, looking at Mordin.

I huffed a laugh. "Well, she did come to get you. So what does that tell you? Ow!" I exclaimed, rubbing where she'd elbowed me in the ribs. Not that it actually hurt through my newly fixed armor.

"Kal!" Tali exclaimed, running forward once the three had made it into the shade. Tali relieved Miranda of her charge with a look, and the Cerberus operative, seemingly unconcerned, walked away to join Shepard, who was watching from the doorway.

"Well," I said as I went to Shepard as well, giving Tali room to fill Kal'Reegar in. "We found her."

"Yeah," Shepard agreed, her voice flat.

I nudged her with my shoulder. "Tali's happy to see you."

"Is she?" Shepard hummed noncommittally. It bothered me that I still couldn't see her face, even when I turned to look at her again.

"No, Garrus," Shepard cut me off before I could even say anything. "Let's just get back to the ship."

XXX

Miranda

The dull roar of conversation in the mess hall greeted me as soon as I exited the elevator. I surveyed the room, noting the position of our newest quarian addition beside Garrus at a table. I nodded. That was expected.

I made my way to the front counter of the kitchen, eager to grab dinner and escape to my office. The reports had yet to be done for Haestrom, and the event of the days to come would hardly give me free time to catch up with them. Illium: that's what the reports would allow me to forget. I might even write Shepard's report for her, instead of our usual argument.

"Cheerleader," Jack called, stomping up behind me.

"What do you want, Jack?" I asked, not hiding my exasperation as she followed me all the way to the large sheet pans of food.

"I need something," she asserted, and I whirled to face her. She stood too close, and I bumped her arm, still bare skin since she refused to wear the new clothing bought for her. Jack scowled at me.

"So it would seem you decided to cooperate," I stated.

"You know you won't find better than me" she said, shifting back on the heels of her feet, arms crossed, her whole body seeming coiled with energy. "And no way am I gonna let some Cerberus bitch tell me what I can or can't do."

Her words were easy to ignore. Insults from her were trifling. I breezed past her, filling my plate and walking to the side to fill a cup with water.

"So, you needed something?" I asked, glancing back at her. "Though I'll admit, I'm surprised you're asking _me_."

"I tried to ask Shepard. She said I had to go to my _leader_," Jack explained scornfully. She glanced over her shoulder, and I found her glare centered on the commander herself, sitting across from Garrus at the table.

"Fine. I'm listening," I said, holding my completed tray and putting my other hand on my hip.

Jack produced a datapad, waving it slightly in the air. "I want to go to the facility that they held me in. And I want to blow it up."

I blinked at her. "You're asking to use our resources to buy a bomb and blow up Cerberus property?" I confirmed, already sneering at her.

"Shit," Jack growled. "I told Shepard this would happen."

"Well, I wouldn't want to disappoint," I replied.

She stomped past me, kicking at the counter as she walked by, and I gritted my teeth together. I saw an open seat by Shepard, and I hesitated, tempted to join what was becoming an informal gathering of the whole team, spirits boosted by what I suspected was more than water in their cups. Zaeed passed by and tried to sit in the open place, but Shepard's glare sent him scurrying in the other direction to join the chanting masses that had started up around Grunt and Jacob, who were arm wrestling at another table. Jacob's arm was wrapped in his biotics to give him a fair chance, of course.

I decided against joining. A working dinner would be the most beneficial, and there really was a lot to do. Like prepare to meet my contact about my sister tomorrow. My stomach twisted.

"Miranda."

I turned at the stern call to see Shepard motioning to the seat she'd kept open next to her. I glanced at my open door, considering making my excuses, but when I looked back at the commander, she was frowning at me. I sighed and took the seat, though I took a moment once my hands were free to make a note about scheduling a trip to Pragia in the coming weeks. Jack may be irritating, but Shepard had been specifically worried about making sure everyone was focused. If blowing up a building would help Jack's attitude, well...there was probably evidence in that abandoned compound that could use a good explosion anyway. I trusted our clean-up crews only to an extent when it came to these things.

"What was that about?" Shepard asked, nodding to Jack, who had replaced Jacob in the arm wrestling bout after he'd lost to the krogan. Tali was glaring at me, luminescent eyes narrowed behind the tinted polycarbonate, though Garrus was already gone from the table, disappeared in the last few minutes.

"Jack requested a trip to Pragia," I answered, taking small bites of my food.

"I'm guessing from her growling that you denied her," Shepard said, grimacing and no doubt thinking of how she was going to have to override the decision. It made me question why she'd bothered to have Jack come through me in the first place.

"I did," I replied. "But I also scheduled it in for a few weeks from now."

Shepard stared at me while I pretended not to notice and continued to eat my food. Rupert had done something fantastic with the potatoes today. I suspected it had something to do with the dangerous amount of melted cheese, and I decided not to finish them.

"Would it have been so painful just to tell her yes?" Shepard was frowning at me again.

"Probably." I waved her off. "She could stand to ask more politely."

"That's rich, coming from you," Tali commented. "I don't remember you asking politely about Veetor." I paused mid-sip and placed my cup down.

"Tali, I believe we got off on the wrong foot. I was...hasty on Freedom's Progress. I'd like to apologize," I admitted, my voice falsely laced with sincerity. Perhaps a public apology could force some sort of civility between us.

No such luck, apparently. "It's Tali'Zorah to you. Or Tali'Zorah vas Neema nar Rayya, if you're feeling formal," Tali snapped back. "Only my friends are allowed my given name. I won't be won over so easily as Shepard."

I looked at the commander in surprise. Tali's words suggested the two of them had already had this discussion. Shepard didn't look back at me, but her thigh brushed against mine under the table and then lingered before she pulled it away again.

"Tali, I'm asking you to trust me on this," Shepard warned. Were they talking about me? Cerberus in general?

Tali sighed. "I'll need access to Engineering," she stated. It wasn't quite a concession to Shepard's words, but it was something.

"I've asked our engineers, Ken and Gabriella, to take care of you," I contributed. "They'll scan your omni-tool and have you authorized."

Tali nodded and stood from the table, taking her red tray with her to drop at the sink before walking past it to the Main Battery.

"Does she realize Engineering is on Deck Four?" I asked Shepard.

Shepard nodded, her thigh brushing against mine again, though this time it stayed. My skin felt hot where we were connected, from hip to knee, and the contact drew all of my attention. When I looked back up at her, Shepard was already watching me intently, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips. _You will not blush, Miranda Lawson. _

"She's probably going to talk to Garrus. About me, most likely," Shepard informed me.

"I thought you would be excited to have her here," I admitted. In reality, Shepard had spent the past few hours sulking in her room. Or that's what I'd deduced from EDI's reports on what Shepard was doing when I'd asked. Though the commander seemed to have made time to speak to Tali at some point.

"I did too. I mean, I am. We've just–" Shepard looked at me seriously– "got a few matters to sort between us."

Her tone made it clear she wouldn't elaborate, and I nodded. "There's a lot to do," I said, cutting the conversation short and standing from my seat. But Shepard grabbed my wrist, loosely, like I could easily shake it off.

"Stay," she said. My heart did a little flip in my chest, looking down at her like this, her face so earnest. "The work can wait."

I removed her hand from my wrist, gingerly pulling her fingers away with my own. "It can't. That's my job," I replied, perhaps colder than I'd intended.

"It doesn't have to be," Shepard muttered, skin about her eyes tightening.

Shepard clearly didn't understand what she was saying. Leave Cerberus? I'd be throwing off over a decade of my life's work like it meant nothing, not to mention the protection from my father that had been freely given by the Illusive Man. All I'd had to do was work for him, and it wasn't even work I resented. He'd given me purpose, resources, and challenges I'd never have found somewhere else. Most importantly, my sister had been kept safe—was still being kept safe, all these years later.

I sighed and didn't answer, but I did sit back down next to her, though the warmth in her eyes suddenly felt like too much. Lustful thoughts and small flutterings of pining were all well and good when they were hidden behind the knowledge that Shepard didn't care for me, that she never would. But this? I looked down to where Shepard had pressed her knee back against mine.

"I can afford another moment or two for you, Commander," I finally replied.

* * *

**The chapter is a bit shorter than they've been recently, but I hope that doesn't mean less quality. It feels a little like a filler chapter, but some important things needed to happen. Plus Tali is on the ship! I'm excited to play with the dynamics of her being added into the crew. Just a warning for everyone: even though I am trying to delve into team relationships that weren't explored in-game, that doesn't mean everyone is going to like each other. It's just not realistic. Eventual respect, maybe. But they can't all be best friends. **

**I can't wait to hear everyone's thoughts. What do you think about making the split into teams? I'm hoping it sounds practical, as it was always something I wished I could do in the game. Shepard has the people, so she should put them to good use. How do you think it's going to work out with Miranda leading the team with Jack? **

**More importantly, who's ready for Illium?**


	18. Black Sheep

Chapter 18: Black Sheep

Liara

"Liara." Nyxeris's voice drifted through the doorway as she approached. I held up a hand to stop her, finishing my message before looking up.

"You asked to be notified if Commander Shepard came to Illium," Nyxeris continued. "The _Normandy_ has just requested docking permission with Nos Astra."

I closed my console straight away, my chest tightening with it at the thought of the meeting ahead, as well as the subsequent conversation that would go with it. "Thank you Nyxeris. Notify traffic control that the _Normandy_'s fees may be put on my account. I'll be leaving the office as well," I ordered. I cleared my desk, locking everything away promptly within its drawers.

"Are you going to the docks?" Nyxeris asked.

"Merely concluding the evening early," I answered, leveling a look at her. Occasionally Nyxeris got a little too nosy into my affairs, but she was usually an excellent assistant.

"I have another batch of information on the Observer. If you'd like to look at it before you go?" Nyxeris offered.

I looked at the datapad in her hand, tempted. Hunting for information on the Shadow Broker had begun to feel like a drug. The high I got after getting an inch closer was indescribable, but the feeling when I was forced a few steps backwards...I shook my head at my assistant.

"I trust you to summarize it for me. Send it to my omni-tool. Use the secure connection," I reminded her.

"Of course," Nyxeris replied.

I breezed past her, smoothing at my skirt while I walked. The docks were close at least, though that meant less time to compose my thoughts, thoughts that were bouncing around my head like insects. The usual noise of the markets outside of my office was annoying, the people milling about the displays even more so. One good biotic push would have everyone cleared out of my way, but I didn't.

"Ah, Dr. T'Soni! Good to see you again," Gianna Parasini called from a nearby table, nursing a drink.

"Ms. Parasini," I greeted her. "I guess it's not a surprise to see you in this district again."

I followed her eyes to an asari that was running a kiosk a few meters away, just outside of the bar, Eternity. Gianna took another sip out of her drink and smiled at me, waving to the seat next to her. I didn't take it.

"Care to join me?" she asked.

I shook my head, smiling back. "Not this time, I think. You'll have to catch your marks all on your own," I declined, pursing my lips.

The first week I'd arrived on Illium, the woman had managed to trick me—playing off our previous association on Noveria—into distracting someone she was trying to take down. I didn't mind much; she was just doing her job. However, I prided myself that I was not so naive as during our last encounter, and I did need to be somewhere.

"Pity. Well, I'm sure I'll still see you around," she replied, waving me off while still subtly watching the other asari.

The dock was just up ahead. I rounded the corner, waving at the docking administrators behind their large counter before walking right past them. Just a few more meters and then...there. Shepard stood just down the corridor, surrounded by a whole gaggle of characters. I recognized them from my reports, the violent biotic named Jack, a young krogan I'd yet to discover a name for, a grizzled mercenary, and the doctor Mordin Solus. Miranda and Jacob I knew as well, and I smiled to Garrus close to Shepard's side, followed closely by Tali, though I hadn't realized Tali had joined the _Normandy_.

Shepard still hadn't seen me, her face twisted with confusion as she spoke to the docking attendant. Her newly dark auburn hair was pulled back in a ponytail, though the untidy tangles were obvious even from here, and I found myself smiling. It was good to see that some things never changed. Her eyes lifted, green locking onto mine, and her steps faltered. I finally stepped closer to them.

"Team, take an hour to yourselves but don't go far. We've still got things to take care of this morning. EDI should have uploaded a map to everyone's omni-tools, so we'll meet at the taxi stand. Dismissed," Shepard ordered. Her crew began to wander away from her, though Garrus and Tali still stayed. Miranda also walked away, the sight of her twisting my stomach though she didn't even deign to meet my gaze.

"Wait, Miranda? Where are you going?" Shepard asked. "I thought we were going to meet your contact."

"I can handle that on my own, Commander," Miranda replied. "It's merely preparations. Besides–" Miranda's eyes finally met mine with a chilling starkness– "I'm sure Liara isn't pleased to see me again."

Shepard's brow furrowed, her eyes watching Miranda leave a moment longer before she finally turned to me. My heart started flips in my chest, churning my stomach as she looked at me with obvious wariness. I wanted to cry, seeing her again, more so that I knew what conversation lay before us. Still, Shepard was beautiful and steady, and I wanted to fling myself into her arms, no matter what reasonings I used to keep myself away from her.

I allowed myself one moment of weakness and closed the gap between us, hesitating only once before cupping her face in my hands. Her eyes shuttered closed, and I pressed my lips to hers, remembering their softness, the security of her touch. I reached out to brush against her mind almost on instinct, internally bracing myself for the intensity that was Shepard's thoughts. It had taken several links to get used to, that feeling of plunging myself into water that was so cold it felt like burning. Yet, as I connected now, I was drowned in the opposite. Her mind surrounded me like heat so intense my nerves felt overloaded. Fire so hot I felt cold.

The entire exchange lasted barely a few seconds before Shepard's mind slammed hard against me, walls flinging shut and sending me mentally stumbling back as the same time Shepard pulled away from our kiss. She didn't have the training of an asari that would make the barrier strong enough to keep me out, but the message was clear. I felt her stream of anger before our contact was broken completely while my own emotions reeled with the implications. _How much does a person have to change before their very _mind _feels different?_

"Sorry," I apologized. My cheeks felt flushed, even more so with Garrus and Tali looking between Shepard and me with obvious surprise. The direction of Shepard's gaze was over my head—_at Miranda?_ I wondered. Jealousy pooled in my stomach—but when Shepard did drop her chin, it was with a small smile for me.

"It's alright," Shepard muttered. "I wasn't sure I'd see you."

"You come back from the dead, and you expect me to ignore you?" I asked, trying to sound playful.

"You've done a good job of it so far," Shepard replied, and her smile turned bitter.

My words caught in my throat at her tone, and I dropped my eyes just briefly to the ground. It was all I needed to steel myself, remember that I was not the same as two years ago. I was stronger. I may still be young in asari terms, but I was not a child, no longer.

"You can imagine the position I was in Shepard," I answered coolly. "I have a different life now."

"Yeah, I heard you've turned into an information broker," Shepard said. Her voice betrayed nothing, and I couldn't tell if she thought that a good development or a bad one.

"I have. With a little imagination, I can convince myself it's similar to my former research," I replied. That did get somewhat of a smile.

I turned to Garrus and Tali, who were still hovering behind Shepard, albeit rather awkwardly.

"I'm so glad to see you two again," I greeted them.

"Yeah, me too. Look, we'll just go for a walk. Leave you two to catch up," Garrus offered.

Shepard rolled her eyes at him. "That's not really necessary–"

"Actually," I broke in, looking at Shepard. "I had something to take care of this evening over near the Tracking Office. I wouldn't mind the company."

She stared at me, wavering. "Alright. But Garrus? I'd like you to start looking for the asari Justicar, Samara, while I'll take care of finding Thane Krios. Just make sure you're back at the meeting time with everyone else, " Shepard ordered.

"We'll be crossing paths then. I suggest starting by asking after Officer Dara at the Tracking Office," I offered to him.

"On it," Garrus replied. He gave a salute to Shepard that seemed sarcastic coming from him, then set on his way with Tali close behind. I didn't miss the way Tali hadn't said a word the entire exchange, though our correspondence had tapered off to a mere trickle these past two years. I had drifted away from nearly everyone, actually. Maybe it was time for me to renew my efforts.

"Do you actually have an errand to run?" Shepard asked, raising an eyebrow at me. "Or was that just to get them out of here?"

"There's an errand," I assured her, leading the two of us out of the docking area.

I walked with the mostly silent Shepard as we passed the Trading Floor. I pointed out the window that marked the location of my office, and Shepard nodded politely. I indicated the direction of the nearby nightclub and marked the locations of several shops for her, feeling more and more like a tour guide as the soldier by my side insisted on remaining quiet.

"What are you doing?" Shepard asked finally as we approached the first terminal I planned to hack into.

"Hacking into this terminal. I can make a nearby system vulnerable to get what I need," I explained.

Shepard narrowed her eyes at me. "Hardly legal."

"It isn't," I answered. I retrieved the scrap of data I was looking for, then turned to look at her directly. "I'm trying to find the Shadow Broker. He captured a drell who helped me, Feron, and I refuse to leave him there."

"Helped you with what?" Shepard asked. I froze.

"Something important," I deflected. _Nothing is as important as retrieving the corpse of your dead lover, right?_ I moved to the second terminal on my list, repeating the process while Shepard trailed behind, having fallen back into her silent brooding. It was, at least, something I had gotten used to all those years ago.

"How do you know Miranda?" Shepard asked as we neared the third terminal, my patience rewarded by her breaking the silence on her own.

I sighed. "I don't, not really," I partially lied. "We've crossed paths before. Miss Lawson leaves an impression."

"That she does," Shepard muttered. "It's just not always a good one."

I nodded softly and moved to the fourth terminal, making quick work of that one as well. _Good_. The last one was by my office, forgotten as I'd led Shepard by it, but I could take care of it tomorrow on my way back into work. Shepard trailed me closely all the while, barely a breath in between us. I felt the warmth of her at my back, the solidness of her presence as close as she could get without walking into me.

"Shepard," I breathed out. "Are we going to talk about this?"

Her eyes dropped. "About what?"

"This," I motioned between us. "Us."

"If that's what you want," she acquiesced.

I grabbed her hand. "I still love you," I admitted.

"I'm sensing a 'but.' That's exactly how you started the conversation after you told me you didn't want to marry me," Shepard said, her mouth tight at the corners.

"I meant it," I insisted. "Just like I mean it now. But I'm not the same person I was before, and I don't think you are either. I'm not sure I see us having a future together."

"I never had time to change into a different person," Shepard stated. Her mouth twisted with a grimace as she held her jaw tight. "But I don't understand how so much could change for you in only two years."

"Maybe nothing did, and that's the problem. The same issues will come between us again, just like before. I wanted to go back to my work, but to leave the _Normandy_ meant I would never see you. You wanted marriage and kids, but I'm still so young. You were always in danger. You _died_," I emphasized. I didn't realize how much that had made my decision until those words tumbled out of mouth. "My feelings for you never changed, but we were being pulled apart by our problems long before the first _Normandy_ was attacked. If love were enough..."

"But it's not. It's not enough," Shepard finished for me again. Her face was crumpling, freckles stretched with a grimace instead of the smile I so loved.

"It's not enough for you either," I continued. "I remember your face when I said I wouldn't marry you."

Shepard was silent, her eyes closed. Her breath came slowly; her jaw was tight. I reached for her, but she side stepped my embrace as she turned her face away.

"I'm sorry," I added.

"I–I understand," Shepard said, looking at me once more. "Won't you come with me anyway? I could still use your help."

The emotion in her eyes was enough to feel like a dagger going straight through me, the pain anticipating her reaction to my response.

"I can't. My work is too important–" I began.

"Yes. The Shadow Broker. Feron," Shepard interrupted me. The words were venomous.

"Shepard, please. You can't tell me if I were trapped somewhere, you wouldn't do everything in your power to find me," I tried.

"That is not the same thing, and you know it. You're choosing some drell over me," Shepard asserted, grimacing.

"It's cruel of you to put it down to a choice," I replied, clenching my jaw.

"And pointless wouldn't you say? When we both know what your choice would be," Shepard said, her voice grown soft.

I resisted the urge to reach out to her, knowing she wouldn't wish my comfort. Still, I knew I had misstepped. Shepard had always been overly sensitive to 'choices,' namely those between people. Kaidan or Ashley. Elise or her team. Her mother choosing duty over daughter. All those secrets and all that pain whispered to me across the pillow, our limbs intertwined.

"He saved my life," I soothed.

Her anger was back. "And I haven't?" Shepard snapped. She turned her face away, working her jaw as she took a deep breath through her nose. I wondered what it would be like to go back to the first time she'd saved me in that Prothean ruin. How silly I'd been back then. "You're reluctant even to tell me what he had to save you _from_. Why?"

"It–" I sighed, coming to a decision– "It's not fully my story to tell. You should ask Miss Lawson. "

"Well, I'm asking you." Shepard shook her head stubbornly.

"I was the one who recovered your body," I started, turning away when Shepard's expression fell dangerously flat. I tipped my chin up to look strong, a mental fortification against some of the most trying weeks of my life. "Cerberus asked for help keeping your body away from the Shadow Broker, during which Feron was captured." I paused, biting my lip. "In the end, I didn't want to give your body to them."

"So why did you?" she asked.

I turned away from her. "You have Miss Lawson to thank for that. Though I suppose you wouldn't be alive otherwise," I said grudgingly.

"Which explains how you know Miranda. Figures." She walked around so I would be facing her again. "What did she do?" Shepard asked.

"At first, nothing. I was just someone who had been close to you and was willing to take on the task. Then she learned of our relationship and…"

"Exploited it," Shepard guessed, scowling.

"Mercilessly," I confirmed. "Anytime I wavered. And, Goddess, if at the end she didn't get everything she wanted."

"I'm not sure how I tricked myself into believing Cerberus just went to the crash site and scraped me off the ground," Shepard growled, seemingly to herself. She glanced down at her omni-tool, her frown deepening before locking eyes with me again, surprised to see tenderness still present in them after our conversation. "I'm sorry you went through that."

I looked past her to the taxi stand where her team had assembled, though a certain Cerberus operative was noticeably absent. However, it was painfully clear that our time was up, in more ways than one.

"Your team is waiting for you." I directed her. The change in her at the words was noticeable: chin up, eyes determined, no evidence at all that our conversation had affected her. "But allow me to still offer what help I can. You're looking for Thane Krios? I have reason to believe he's taken a contract on Nassana Dantius."

"Nassana?" Shepard confirmed, her voice easily slipping into her business tone. "Well, I can't say I'll miss her. How can I find him?"

"I would assume by finding Nassana," I answered.

Shepard scoffed. "It's not like she's going to invite me to tea. I'm just as likely to kill her as the assassin," Shepard pointed out. "Not to mention, if she's as paranoid as she used to be, she's bound to have a ton of security. There's got to be a better way than me starting a firefight in the middle of the city."

"I could–" I hummed to myself. "Well, I could help you trace who hired him."

"That could work," Shepard agreed, but her voice was steely. "I can have Garrus work with you. Potentially meet Thane when he goes to meet his employer and exchange payment."

"And Nassana? Assassinating her?" I asked.

Shepard stared at me, and the look was surprisingly cold. "If this guy is as good as he's supposed to be, Nassana won't be difficult for him. Otherwise, well, he would've been useless to me anyway," Shepard said with a shrug. "And I could care less what happens to Nassana."

I was silent, almost stunned with her callousness, but I managed to reply, "Well, I'll need my equipment. I can't do all of that from an omni-tool."

Shepard hummed and nodded but paused before going to her team. She held my gaze, jaw tight and eyes glassy as she took my hands for one last time.

"Liara. What we spoke of earlier...I hope you know you can't expect me to wait for you to change your mind. Not this time. I love you, but–"

I squeezed her fingers and finished for her, the words she had already spoke to me, "It's not enough."

Shepard nodded and motioned her hand for me to follow, leading us over to the gathered team. She walked just like I remembered from the _Normandy_ SR-1, the confident gait that would never falter, never reveal something might be wrong. I blinked away tears, desperate to keep them from falling as she turned away from me to address her team, and all I could think was _Goddess, what have I done?_

**XXX**

Garrus

Illium, for all intents and purposes, was starting to feel like a small vacation. This was no backwater planet we had to land on and shoot our way through. No, Illium was delightfully mild in temperature and possessed a bar or nightclub on almost every block. Of course there was work to be done—we were scheduled to stay here for the next four days at least—but I didn't doubt Shepard planned on giving us at least an evening off. I already had plans.

Samara, at least, hadn't been difficult to locate. One conversation with Officer Dara and it was confirmed that the asari Justicar was at a nearby spaceport that was only a few miles to the west. However, said port was also, much to my inconvenience, closed off, though at least that meant the Justicar wasn't leaving either.

There was still time before we needed to meet back with Shepard, so Tali and I headed to the nearby gun kiosk while Tali pretended not to be watching Shepard's every move as she milled about the area with Liara. I would even bet my lucky sniper rifle Tali also had her helmet tuned in to eavesdrop.

"Did you know about them?" Tali asked me, motioning to Shepard and Liara. Liara had just grabbed Shepard's hand.

I smiled guiltily, and Tali smacked my arm. "Hey! I didn't!" I exclaimed. "I mean, I suspected. But for a while I thought she was involved with Ashley instead."

"Everyone always left me out of the gossip," Tali sulked, crossing her arms.

"There was no gossip. Just intuition," I replied.

"Intuition? I know intuition. I have _more _intuition than you do!" Tali retorted.

I snorted. "Fine. Yes, lots of intuition," I allowed.

There was a movement by my elbow, and Miranda brushed by us looking distracted. She didn't even seem to notice it was me she'd bumped into. My gaze followed after her, concerned.

"I can't believe you like her," Tali huffed behind me.

"She's not as bad as she seems," I answered.

"Well she _seems_ like she works for Cerberus," Tali replied. I hid my grin, amused by her stubbornness but not willing to let her see. All that would do was earn me another smack. Their shared obstinacy was why she and Shepard had clicked so easily...and also why they'd butted heads. "You know they infiltrated one of our ships–"

I held up a talon to stop her. "Yes, Tali. You've told me all of this five times by now. I've counted."

"Well, I'm still angry," Tali retorted. "And Shepard is an idiot for trusting anyone in that organization."

This argument had been going on an endless loop ever since we'd picked Tali up. I wasn't frustrated with her necessarily...but, alright, yes, I was frustrated. Not to mention, there was a weird tension with her and Shepard. The woman had only been alive for two months, and Tali had only been on the ship for two days! What could she have possibly started with Tali in that amount of time?

A pair of tattooed hands slapped down on the kiosk counter and startled me. Jack leaned up against the edge, cocking her head as she examined the pieces and greedily grabbed a few to look closer. She looked up at Tali and me.

"Talking about anything good?" Jack asked, tossing an ammo mod to the side with a sneer. The shop attendant looked ready to have a fit.

"Just how stupid it is to work for Cerberus," Tali answered. "And what an idiot Garrus is for not stealing Shepard away from them sooner."

Jack narrowed her eyes at Tali, silent for the next few seconds.

"You're alright," Jack replied, jamming a pointed finger in Tali's direction and using the momentary distraction to slip a shotgun choke into one of her pockets with the other hand. I sighed. "At least someone around here gets it."

"It would be better if Shepard 'got it,'" Tali said, making quotations with her fingers. "We could do fine on our own. There are multiple organizations we could turn to to back us, or there are _other_ ways of acquiring funding. Plus Shepard is still a Spectre. So we ditch the Cerberus crew and go our own way."

"Fat chance," Jack scoffed, debunking Tali's plan before I had the chance to argue with her for the _sixth_ time. "The cheerleader has her claws sunk in way too deep for that now. And if I have to hear one more lecture from Shepard about working with bad people for the right reasons and _teamwork_, I'm going to rip out a bulkhead."

Tali stared at Jack for a moment, then her head turned slowly to me. "What does she mean, Miranda has her claws sunk in Shepard?" Tali asked, her voice low.

"They've been bonding. I told you, she isn't so bad," I replied.

"Idiot!" Tali smacked me on the arm. "I _knew_ something was up. What have you even been doing? How could you let this happen?"

"I didn't do anything!" I rubbed the spot on my arm with a pointed frown. "That was the point," I replied, smiling again when Tali crossed her arms with another huff. Jack looked between the two of us, indifferent, and proceeded to pocket yet another gun mod.

"So, hear anything good over there?" I asked, nodding at Shepard and Liara.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Tali denied.

I narrowed my eyes at her. "Oh please."

"You're listening?" Jack asked. "I've got to get me one of those."

"I can get one for you if you'd like," Kasumi said, appearing out of the air by our side. I jumped. "And their conversation was really juicy. Now it's boring because they started talking about work."

"Of course you'd be eavesdropping," I groaned to Kasumi. All I could see under her hood was her small smile. I looked over at Shepard and Liara, and they did indeed seem to be having a serious conversation, judging by the grim look that had settled on Shepard's face.

I turned that direction only to see that Grunt, Zaeed, and Jacob were already approaching the taxi stand to wait for our meeting. Mordin wasn't far off, occupied in a conversation between an asari and a krogan that was reciting poetry, of all things. I checked the time on my omni-tool.

"Well, it's about time to meet up. We should round everyone up," I said.

There was a grumble from Jack, but Tali and Kasumi began to walk towards the taxi as well. I began to follow, then stopped, pulling out my credit chit and turning to the shop attendant.

"Here," I thrust it into her hands. By my eye, Jack had stolen at least three gun mods. "For the stuff she took," I added, throwing a thumb over my shoulder.

The store clerk looked dumbfounded but ran the numbers I named off, thanking me multiple times. I waved the words off, not really interested in the glowing accolades she was throwing my way. She'd probably have lost her job over something Jack did, and, besides, Shepard was going to be paying me back for this. She was the one who was responsible for Jack.

I joined the rest just as Shepard did, Liara trailing up behind. The commander's gaze swept across the group, resting on each face, frowning when she found one missing.

"Where's Miranda?" Shepard asked.

I looked around in surprise. I had just seen Miranda, hadn't I? We all looked dumbfounded except for Jack, who just crossed her arms over her chest and scowled. I shifted on my feet, well aware I was one of the few in the group feeling genuine concern at her absence, but of the many things Miranda Lawson was, truant was not among them. The hard line of Shepard's jaw betrayed the same thought.

"Well?" Shepard prompted again.

"I just saw her, not too long ago," I spoke up. "I swear she walked right by me."

"She probably just lost track of time," Shepard said. Helpfully, no one pointed out how unlikely that was. "In the meantime, I've got a task for some of you. Garrus, you'll be taking your team to work with Liara. There's a lead on Thane Krios I want you to explore. Tech stuff I don't really understand." She shrugged. "Grunt, Zaeed, Mordin, and Jack, you'll be with me. We'll make a pit stop to find Miranda and then go on our way to talk to Samara. Garrus, you said you'd found a location?"

"Already sent to your omni-tool, Commander," I confirmed.

Shepard nodded and marched off, the appropriate squadmates following her while the rest stayed standing about me. Liara gave me a small smile.

"Just us then," Liara said.

"Yeah, I trust you can fill me in?" I asked.

She nodded. "We'll go to my office," she said, leading us out of the area and into a hallway that would connect us back to the trading floor where her office was located. "We'll be tracing who hired the assassin you're interested in."

"Shouldn't we be asking who the assassin is going to kill?" Jacob asked.

Liara grimaced then answered, "We know. The target is Nassana Dantius. Shepard has elected not to try and stop the assassination."

"What?" Jacob asked, his jaw staying open.

I gave the soldier a hard look, and he closed his mouth but didn't lose the frown. "It'll be easier just to find their meeting afterwards. That's what Shepard wants, right?" I confirmed.

"Yes," Liara answered.

I looked at her from the corner of my eye, noting that she looked more drawn and pale than I remembered her being. She could just be tired; being an information broker isn't exactly a forgiving line of work. There was a lot of hunting involved, a lot of pouring over computer screens and sitting behind a desk for hours on end. I'd worked closely with a few information brokers in my day, when I could afford them, and they all seemed to have the same sharp smiles and tired eyes.

Still, it was more than that here. Liara looked like she'd lost something—a curious conclusion to make about someone whose job it was to find things, but it was there all the same. I considered asking her about it, but, honestly, Liara and I had never been that close. Really the only thing we'd ever had in common had been Shepard, and now, I wasn't sure we even had that.

"My office is just up the stairs," Liara said, mounting the steps ahead of us.

I looked around the spacious office with appreciation. It had large windows and clean lines, minimally decorated but purposefully so, though I had the sense that Liara had been aiming for utilitarian but failed. Instead, the place had a sense of emptiness. It had me wondering if her apartment looked much the same: classy but devoid of personality. Maybe she'd never planned on staying. What changed?

"This console should have all the programs you'll need. Though perhaps our local tech genius should be the one to run it," Liara said with a smile at Tali. I noticed she checked several things on the computer and ran a hand over the locks on her desk before giving up her seat, however. Liara had certainly gotten used to the intrigues on Illium if she was this paranoid around friends. Tali took her place in the chair and readied her fingers over the keyboard. Kasumi flitted over to watch over her shoulder, and Jacob took a seat to the side, already looking bored.

"Where do I start?" Tali asked. All eyes turned to me.

"Any ideas Kasumi?" I asked. "Liara?"

"People hunting isn't exactly what I'm known for," Kasumi replied.

"We need to get into the communications," Liara began. "But that would be a waste of time without knowing who to target first."

"Thane isn't part of an organization. He's a freelancer, hard to contact. But there must be a way, otherwise he would never get contracts. Maybe he has an intermediary," I mused out loud.

"How would that even work?" Tali asked. "He works on multiple planets. He's not just going to have some bartender on the Citadel passing along contact information."

"Drell have that Compact with the hanar. Maybe he still has a handler," I suggested.

"It's not likely," Liara said, shaking her head. "From what I know of his background, he was released from that. And the types of contracts he takes suggests he hasn't returned. These are individual, personal hits."

"Another direction then. If we could get contact information, I'm sure Cerberus intel would have done it already," I said. "So let's focus on who would want to kill Nassana Dantius."

"You mean besides everyone?" Jacob threw in. I shot him an unamused look.

"Damn it," I growled. "We'll try the hard way then. Get the lists of recent arrivals from the docking agency. The last week at least."

"You think the assassin only arrived in the last week? What if he's been staying longer than that?" Kasumi pointed out.

"That's possible. But he doesn't live here, so he must have come in on a transport at some point. And I wouldn't think an assassin with his reputation would need over a week to make a mark. So we'll look through the passenger manifests, starting with today," I ordered.

Tali started typing furiously on the keyboard, pausing occasionally to tap something on the virtual screen. I watched the movements, the boxes and windows she went back and forth between on the screen, but I didn't pretend to understand what she was doing. Hacking of this nature was far above my skills. _Give me gun circuits and bombs any day._ Tali began to download files, transferring them to datapads and handing them off. I gave us each a day to look through, leaving the oldest days for later.

Scrolling through the names was tedious. No doubt Thane Krios wasn't going to just jump on a ship with his real name, but most of the passenger lists had species notes next to them as well. My datapad had the list from two days ago, but so far, held nothing about a drell. I kept looking.

"There's a surprising number of slaver ships docked here," Tali mentioned, still working at the computer while the rest of us poured over our datapads. Our team was scattered about the room in various chairs Liara's assistant had managed to produce.

"Slavery is legal on Illium," I reminded her, not looking up from my list.

"Garrus," Tali said seriously from the desk. "One of the ships is registered to a Dahlia Dantius."

I set my list down and stood up. "That's not possible. Shepard killed her."

"Look," Tali said, pointing. "Her name is right there under a freighter named the _Black Sheep_."

"If she were still alive, she wouldn't be stupid enough to come to Illium under her real name, right? Her sister is the one who paid Shepard to kill her," I argued, going around the desk to see the screen.

"Or it's a warning," Liara added. "Perhaps, Dahlia is playing with her sister. Wants her to know she's coming."

"And maybe she hired our lucky assassin," I realized.

"I found a drell," Jacob added in. "One arrived three days ago on a passenger cruiser. Name listed is Tannor Nuara."

"Alright, there's contact information for the ship, right? Make a call to the captain and see what you can find out," I ordered. I turned to Tali. "Meanwhile, let's tap into Dahlia's communications."

Half an hour later and we had sludged through multiple useless emails, and Jacob had returned from his phone call with nothing. The emails were a frustration in themselves. There were a few that looked suspicious, all to the same person, but their contents made no sense.

"They're in a code," Liara supplied helpfully. Like I didn't know that. "We won't be able to decipher it without the key."

I looked at the emails a last time, then stood up from my chair, slapping my hands against the armrests. I paced the room, ignoring that the other four were watching me. There must be another way to do this, one that did not involve me breaking with Shepard's orders. She said no to going to Nassana. That was fine; that way was dangerous anyway.

"Alright, that's it. Tali, you stay here with Liara and keep looking. Drop the Dahlia angle and look for something else that can help. Jacob and Kasumi, you're coming with me," I said, marching for the door.

"Wait, where are you going?" Tali called after us.

"I'm going to Dahlia's ship. Hopefully she's on it and can answer some questions. Otherwise, we're running out of time," I replied.

"We don't even know if the assassin will try to move today, or tomorrow, or the next day," Tali argued.

"Yeah, but when he does, he'll be gone. We can't take the chance that he slips away tonight."

"We could always go to Nassana and wait for Thane there, save her life," Jacob added, trotting next to me as I stormed through the doorway and down the stairs.

"Nassana is the 'shoot first, ask questions later' type. I promise if she sees me, Tali, or Shepard, she'll get her security involved. She's paranoid and has a long memory," I said. "I'm sure you don't want to slaughter a bunch of guards just to have a conversation?"

"What makes you think her sister will be any different?" Jacob asked.

"Common interest? I don't know. But it's at least less likely that she knows my face. I wasn't with Shepard on the mission where they attacked her. Plus, you'll be going first. She definitely doesn't know you," I added.

"Fine. Just don't get me shot," Jacob groused.

"Wasn't planning on it," I said with a grin.

We arrived at the _Black Sheep_, and I pushed Jacob ahead as we marched up to the guards. I kept my back straight, expression grim. Looking dangerous was the best way to deal with these types, I'd learned from Omega. The two guards, an asari and a human, at the external airlock door readied their guns immediately.

"We want to talk to Dahlia Dantius," Jacob said. His voice was firm, didn't waver. Good. The asari muttered something into her omni-tool, paused, then said something again.

The asari smirked, stepping to the side. "Go ahead," she offered. "Guns stay here."

I held out my hands, palms up, and did a turn. "We didn't bring any," I replied.

Kasumi stood to the side, cloaked, loaded down with two assault rifles and a pistol we'd detoured to the _Normandy _to grab. A risky attempt, but I looked at the state of the freighter, and some of the tensions loosed in my stomach. It was unlikely they'd have the tech to detect Kasumi or our stash of weapons.

The asari opened the door, but it was the human that led us on board, directing us to a flight of stairs that would take us a deck up. He climbed the narrow steps with ease, pushing at a pace that was harder for my longer legs to get used to. The steps were much shorter than they should be, and the muscles in my legs were uncomfortable after the first ten.

We were led through another hallway—I was sure to memorize the way—but we had yet to run into many crew. Maybe we would be in luck and most of them were off the ship if things got ugly. Another turn had us at the doorway, and the human guard motioned at it with his gun, never saying a word before marching off. I hit the door control.

An asari sat behind a desk, her skin a light violet hue that glinted in the florescent lights. She looked up and stopped typing, her eyes narrowing as we filed into the door. Three guards stood along the walls.

"My guards said I had guests. You aren't who I was expecting," the asari said.

"Who were you expecting?" Jacob asked, taking the lead as I'd asked.

"Commander Shepard, for one. I heard she docked here recently. On a Cerberus ship." Her eyes lingered on Jacob's uniform. "And with her faithful turian bodyguard." Her eyes landed on me.

"So you know who we are," I said, stepping forward. "Why'd you let us in?"

"Call it curiosity," she answered. "What do you want?"

"Are you Dahlia?" I asked.

She smiled, but shook her head. "I used the name to toy with my dear sister. I'm the other Dantius, Varia. My late sister left her belongings to me, including the ship." Varia scanned the room. "It could still use some fixing up. Dahlia didn't have much of a head for money, despite running her own trade."

"So I'm guessing you and Nassana aren't close," I fished.

"What would make you think that?" Varia asked. Her smile turned sharp.

"We're not here to get in your way. I just need to meet Thane Krios," I assured her.

She leaned back in her chair, folding her hands in front of her. She dismissed the guards in the room with a sweep of her eyes, then motioned to the chairs in front of her desk. Her smile was frightening.

"Please, sit. Your cloaked friend can sit on one of the armrests, if you'd like," Varia offered.

"There's no way you could see me," Kasumi said, appearing and walking up behind us.

"There's a tell-tale shimmering that tactical cloaks make, if you know to look for it," Varia waved her off.

"Then why dismiss your guards?" I asked.

"This isn't for them to hear," Varia said. "Besides, I sense we have some things to talk about." She drummed her fingers against her desk. "You're no friends of my sister. That's for sure. But you killed for her. Why?"

"Shepard was tricked. She didn't know she was killing Nassana's—your—sister. Just that she was taking down a slaver," I explained.

"Yes, the commander holds no fondness for slavery. I've heard. Is hiring an assassin much better?" Varia asked.

"So you _do_ know where Thane Krios is?" I pushed.

"Not exactly," Varia deflected. She looked down at her omni-tool. "But I do know where he'll be in say, the next three hours or so." She pulled two bottles from a drawer in her desk. "Willing to wait?"

I looked at my two teammates cautiously, ignoring Varia's cat-like grin. I sighed, typing out a message to Tali, before accepting the purple drink the asari had poured for me. Two blue colored ones went to Kasumi and Jacob.

"You better not be wasting my time," I warned her.

"He'll be here," Varia soothed. "I'm his ride off-planet."

**XXX**

Miranda

My foul mood followed me all the way through my meeting with my contact at Eternity and lasted long after I'd left the bar behind. It wasn't because I'd turned to see Liara kissing Shepard. And it wasn't because Shepard had looked up and caught me staring when I should have been walking away. Definitely not.

No, the exact cause of my black mood came after speaking with my contact. There had been a security breach, multiple security breaches. But none of the information accessed had been about Oriana. Which was curious in itself, given the day. Her travel plans should still be safe. What the hacker had been looking for had seemingly been my location, though whether they got it or not was uncertain.

What _was_ certain was that nothing this evening would be left to chance. Everything would be treated as if Oriana's safety had been compromised, which it very well could be. If my father was behind this, which I suspected, then no doubt he hired some brutes to kidnap her. So I would go to the docks and escort her on that transport personally, if I had to. But that meant I would need Shepard. More importantly, I would need guns.

I turned down a hallway before making for the taxi stand Shepard had designated for the team meetup. I pushed past anyone standing in my way; time was of the essence. I would still need to get back to the ship for my armor and equipment—we'd elected to travel light today to draw less attention—and the team would too. I looked down at my omni-tool. Five hours until Oriana's transfer, yet no guarantee she wouldn't be snatched in the meantime.

I arrived at the taxi stand but all that stared back at me were empty car windows. I peered closely at the cabs near me, but this cab stop was eerily empty, no passengers looking to board or taxis waiting to land. I saw nothing and no squad members either. The last part wasn't unusual, at least; I was early. I saw Shepard and Liara talking a short distance away, so I started in that direction just as a cab door opened next to me.

A hand clasped over my mouth, and there was a sting in the skin of my neck before I had even registered the motion. The same hand shoved a gag in my mouth as my knees dropped underneath me, but strong arms were underneath me, draping my arms along their shoulders. I was losing feeling in my body, and panic bubbled up as my assailant put a syringe away. A paralytic.

Shepard was still just across the room. I tried to shout, but I wasn't loud enough with the ball of cloth choking me. I tried to spit it out, but the hand was back, shoving my mouth closed so hard my teeth crashed against each other. Panic had full control of my breathing now, short stabs of breath wracking my lungs as I tried not to inhale the gag. I rolled my head back over to see Shepard, willing with everything that she would just look over. If she turned even slightly, she would see. But, no, my hopes dropped as my body went fully limp with the paralytic, and Shepard never turned. Her eyes remained on Liara, and I was dragged backwards.

I was swept up and thrown into the open door of the cab, the back of my head bouncing against the center console. The door slammed shut quickly behind me. I tried to see out of the window, to determine if anyone had seen, but there was nothing but the sky from that angle. I estimated the encounter lasted less than a minute. No one saw, or else they were too slow. My assailant, whose dark attire and hood didn't clue me into an identity, was already punching in a code to the taxi, and that last shred of hope withered as we flew away.

The driver took their hands off the steering wheel once the autopilot caught, turning to face me. She pushed down her hood, revealing a human woman with unremarkable features, easy to forget. I vowed I wouldn't. She began to rummage in a satchel as I stared at her, trying to look as angry as possible.

_I can't believe I let myself get kidnapped_. The thought was so preposterous I wanted to laugh, but, no, that wasn't funny. Or it wasn't until I took stock of the whole situation: the throbbing at the back of my head, how I was slumped clumsily over the seat, limbs everywhere, the drool that was already running down my chin because I couldn't swallow it with the gag in the way. Yes, that was hilarious. I had been so focused on Oriana that I'd let my own guard down, missed the huge hint that someone had hacked through my security only to find _my_ location.

I forced myself to calm down. I couldn't move, but I was awake. I would watch where we went and find my way back. I tilted my chin down to see that my omni-tool was still on my lifeless arm. At least I would be able to message someone the minute I had a chance.

My kidnapper reached in a satchel and pulled out another syringe. My eyes widened.

Her other hand went to the back of my neck, feeling around the edges of my biotic amp port. A sick feeling grew in my stomach; I wanted to fight back. I wanted to slam her against the wall, splatter her head across the windshield. Maybe the woman saw the thoughts in my eyes because, certainly, my arms never moved. She dug her fingernails under the edges of my amp and then ripped it sharply out at the same time as jamming a needle in my arm.

White hot pain ran from the base of my neck to the tail of my spine, spreading like needles through my arms and legs too as I screamed, still muffled against the gag. The woman pushed me away from her, fully into the passenger seat, and whatever drug she had given me set in, giving a blurry cast to my thoughts. It was hard to focus. _Where am I going?_

"I have her," the driver said eventually, speaking into her omni-tool.

In any state, I would recognize the voice that came next.

"Let me see."

* * *

**Alright, I'm a really mean person for leaving you with a cliffhanger. However, I did hold this chapter (It was done last week.) so chapter 19 wouldn't be so far away. Seriously, though, hit me with all of your thoughts! I know some people don't like when I modify the missions, but this is slightly AU. I also usually have really good reasons for when I change them. Like with Thane's mission, all I could think was "why in the world am I shooting up this building just to talk to him?" So do you all like the change, or no?**

**What about the deal with Liara and Shepard? I'd love to hear all of the opinions on that, and, of course, how you all feel about Miranda being taken. Unexpected? Is it really obvious who's behind it? **


	19. You Don't Own Me

Chapter 19: You Don't Own Me

Miranda

I had always been afraid of the dark. It was irrational; I knew that. Yet any number of things could be waiting, hidden, within shadows, and if I couldn't see the threat, I couldn't prepare for it. If I wasn't prepared, I wasn't in control, and losing control was what I feared most.

I awoke in the dark, my face pressed against, from what I could tell, a soaked carpet. The rough material rubbed at my face, and whatever liquid was pooled in it I had accidentally breathed into my nose. It burned my nostrils, and I gagged when it hit the back of my throat. The copper tang of blood was unmistakeable, overpowering the other disgusting tastes in my mouth.

I didn't think it was mine at least; I would be feeling any injury that had cost me that much blood. I twisted and tried to sit up, struggling against my bound hands that were trapped between my stomach and the floor, and immediately smashed my forehead against a metal ceiling. I dropped back down, cursing. _Damn it, where am I?_

I needed to see, so I flared my biotics, knowing the blue light would at least give me something. The familiar power fluttered around me with barely the strength of a butterfly's wings, uselessly weak without an amp. I didn't have biotics. I couldn't feel my omni-tool on my arm. My breath caught in my chest, and I lashed out, panicked, with my legs. The kick landed against the side and resounded with a thump throughout what I recognized as a car trunk.

I managed to roll over but landed on something hard in the trunk with me. I pushed myself back, turned my neck, and found myself nose to nose with Niket, a very dead Niket with a charred hole in the middle of his forehead.

I screamed.

I scrambled as best I could to the other side of the trunk, not even pretending to suppress the shaking in my limbs. There was no one to see me here, no one to be strong for. No one but my dead friend whose blood was in my mouth. I gagged again.

The metallic stench was already clogging my nose, blocking the smell of pine trees and spices that had always clung to his clothes. Memories of stolen kisses in dark corners and strong arms were warped forever by the sight of his mangled face. It was hard to look away, and the trunk felt like it was getting smaller, closing in around me and pushing me towards Niket.

I kicked out again, thrashing my feet against the solid metal wall, and I began screaming in earnest. _I need out. Get me out. Get me out!_

The humming of the engine stopped when the car did, cutting off the acceleration so rapidly that I went rolling with it. I was slammed up against the side of the trunk, and I hissed when something sharp cut into my cheek. Niket's body crushed me seconds later. I bit back another scream and kicked him away from me.

The latch of the trunk clicked at the hatch opened, and I was blinded by a flooding of light. An asari in Eclipse armor loomed over me, sneering with disgust. I maneuvered a leg up to kick at her, but she froze me in a stasis field. Then she punched me square in the face with a biotic wrapped fist.

"Shut up," she hissed, and I groaned with pain, the noise sounding distorted through the stasis field.

She stuck another needle in my neck, and I was unconscious in seconds.

XXX

I woke a second time with significantly less panic, berating myself for drawing attention. Now, in addition to still being locked in a car trunk, my thoughts were fuzzy from whatever drugs were in my system, and my head hurt. The floor swayed underneath me, and I blinked to try and focus.

There were at least no more surprises in my surroundings, just obstacles to overcome. My first objective was to grope around for an emergency release in the trunk, but I gave up on that quickly once I realized the car was very obviously flying through the air. I would never survive a drop like that.

I stilled at the sound of voices.

"Yes, I still have her. What am I supposed to do now? Niket turned on us and tipped them off. Now the girl is surrounded, and I don't have enough people to try to take on Commander Shepard and her whole crew." The voice was that of the asari that had punched me, muffled from inside the car. I sagged against the trunk floor in relief. _Shepard is keeping them away from Oriana_.

My next emotion was confusion: Shepard had converged the whole crew around Oriana instead of coming after me? Somewhere in there, there must be some grand plan to get me back. She wasn't just going to leave me. _Right? Or is this just the perfect excuse to get rid of me?_

My blood froze at the next voice. "You're saying there's absolutely no way to get to her?" my father asked. Some of the tension released when the audio crackled, and I realized he was only on a comm system. With luck, he wasn't actually on planet. Granted, that would make it more difficult for me to shoot him, but it did keep him away from Oriana.

"I don't see one. I can deliver just Miranda to you, if that's acceptable." This time I recognized the voice of my first kidnapper.

"I didn't want Miranda," my father spat, and I sneered into the dark, the words unexpectedly painful. "I just needed her out of the way. Not only is she disobedient, but I don't have the resources to go against the Illusive Man, not when she knows so much about his organization. I'd have to kill her and pay Cerberus an exorbitant sum to smooth it over."

"No offense, but it sounds like taking Oriana is going to cause similar problems with Cerberus," the asari replied.

My father laughed. "No. The Illusive Man is a businessman above all else. Oriana is an expense he takes on only to keep Miranda's loyalty. But if I were to provide a way for him to keep Miranda while I take Oriana...Let's just say I've already made the phone call."

I clenched my fists in front of me, struggling to breathe properly. _He's lying. He always lies._

"Take Miranda to the docks and offer the commander a trade," my father ordered after a pause. A trade? For my sister? Shepard would never take that.

"And if Shepard says no?" the Eclipse merc asked.

"She won't. Shepard has a reputation; she'll want Miranda," my father replied.

_Reputation? _I dropped my head back, letting it thump against the thin carpeting of the trunk but immediately regretting it when my head rang with pain. I rolled to my side and resigned myself to waiting.

XXX

Another syringe of drugs and a blackout later and I woke to a still car. I moved my body experimentally: still bound but nothing hurt. My thoughts were slower in coming, and my stomach rolled. I held my breath trying to keep myself from vomiting in the small compartment.

I couldn't fight like this. Whatever cocktail they keep shooting into me was being metabolized faster than a normal human, but the nausea wasn't a good sign. The Eclipse merc was stabbing them into me anytime she saw me awake unlike the calculated doses of my original kidnapper, whoever she was. Too much more, and they would begin to do real damage. I could begin hallucinating or my heart could stop: overdose. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to calm down.

Too much time in the black of the car trunk was disorienting. I heard nothing but footsteps on the outside of my prison, pacing. Guards? I quietly felt around the walls of the trunk, renewing my efforts to find an emergency release now that I was actually on the ground. My hand grazed over something that felt like it could be what I was looking for, but, no, I also pricked my fingers on the exposed, frayed end of a cable. _Disabled. Damn it. _

Next I tried feeling for anything that would let me pry open the latch, a crowbar or maybe a tire iron, but I stilled when I realized it was too silent. The pacing had stopped, and I tensed when two soft thumps landed against the ground.

When the click of the trunk latch heralded its opening, I rolled to the far back, pushing hard with my knees until I could feel Niket behind me. I pushed down my revulsion and concentrated on remaining quiet.

The door opened just a crack at first, not the forceful flinging open of the Eclipse mercenary. I hazarded a push forward, for a better look, and was met by impossibly dark, black eyes staring back at me through the crack, green scaled skin visible around them.

I blinked. I didn't know very many drell. _Feron? Am I hallucinating already? Is this some sort of guilt thing? I don't usually have those. _In fact, that last thought ground me to reality. I'd never cared one ounce about Feron's current well-being, and my conscience certainly wouldn't have started that now. _But bloody hell, my head does hurt._

The door opened even wider and revealed a drell, like I'd thought, but he definitely wasn't Feron. Through the larger gap I could see two Eclipse mercenaries prone on the ground, and I stared cautiously at my would-be rescuer.

"Are you in need of assistance?" the drell asked.

"I'm locked in a bloody car trunk. You think I'm here voluntarily?" I snapped, but my words weren't barbed like usual. They came out slurred, and it was hard for me to wrap my mouth around them, like chewing on cotton.

"No, probably not," the drell answered.

"Who are you?" I asked, shielding my eyes from the flooding of light when the drell pushed the trunk door completely open.

"I am Thane Krios," he answered.

I stared at him. "Did Shepard send you?" I asked. He looked surprised at the question and cocked his head to the side as he watched me pull myself to the lip of the trunk.

"No. I heard talk of a kidnapping over the Eclipse radios and decided to investigate," Thane explained.

"Maybe they should work on their security," I muttered, concentrating on swinging my legs over the side. It was surprisingly difficult to get my limbs to cooperate. "If you're freely listening into their radios."

"It is difficult to guard communications when the recipients are dead," Thane replied, and the corners of my lips twitched up in response. "Do you work for Commander Shepard? My contact sent me a message saying she was looking to speak with me. I decided to detour here first."

"I do," I answered, pursing my lips as I thought about how much effort it would cause me to stand up. Fingers snapped in front of my face, and I jolted back. _How long had I been staring off?_

"There are no more guards in this area. We should seek medical attention," Thane insisted.

"Nonsense," I scoffed at him. "I need to get to my sister. She's at Dock 94. Where are we?"

I huffed in impatience and motioned with my bound hands. Thane disappeared, and I heard the scrape of armor on metal and muffled fumbling through pockets. He reappeared with a key and released my hands. I rubbed feeling back into them gratefully.

"We are in the cargo bay of Dock 94," Thane answered, dropping the keys of my cuffs to the ground.

I evaluated Thane, dragging my eyes along his light clothing and thin frame. A sniper rifle was strapped to his back, but I remembered from his file that he was also highly proficient in hand-to-hand, as evidenced by the askew necks of the two Eclipse guards on the ground. I would be moving slower than usual, but he could definitely be of use.

The omni-tool of one of the mercs lit up, and I recognized my asari captor's voice.

"Delta Team, it's time to transport the prisoner to the dock for the trade. Do you read?"

I looked at Thane. "How serious are you about helping me?" I asked him.

"I have no other pressing engagements," Thane replied. I smiled, stretching my lips over my teeth. I was going to like this one.

"Answer her, then steal that merc's armor," I ordered him, pleased when my voice came out a little stronger. "I've got a plan."

XXX

Garrus

"Kasumi, stop touching my fringe. I've told you repeatedly that turians do not like that," I grumbled, turning to glare at the woman in question.

"I'm just curious," she said, shrugging. "And bored. Shouldn't this guy be here by now?"

"What's the point anyway?" Jacob broke in. "Do we really want an assassin covering our backs?"

"Shepard makes the final call. You know that," I repeated. I ignored Varia Dantius smirking at me from behind a datapad. We'd exhausted conversation long ago in our wait for Thane Krios to arrive, and our asari hostess had turned back to working at her desk. However, she was a terrible actress, and I doubt she'd answered a single email while we'd been sitting here. Her smiles were far too frequent.

"Yeah, but Shepard listens to you. You could tell her this guy wasn't a good fit," Jacob pushed.

"Shepard makes the final call," I reiterated through gritted teeth. "What's your problem anyway?"

"I don't like mercenaries," Jacob said with a frown. "That's what assassins are. Killing for money."

"I'll be sure to tell Zaeed that you don't like him," Kasumi said, crossing one leg lightly over the other as she perched on my chair's armrest. "Maybe I'd like to hear your opinions on thieves as well."

"Alright, let's not start this," I mediated as Jacob opened his mouth to reply.

"Or what about Garrus? He killed loads of people on Omega. You don't seem to have a problem with him," Kasumi continued anyway as Jacob frowned.

I held up a talon. "Criminals," I corrected her. "I killed criminals."

"I'm a criminal," Kasumi said, crossing her arms.

"Well I wasn't planning on shooting you," I replied.

The thief gave a light laugh and flicked my fringe again, eliciting a growl from me.

"My point still stands," Jacob maintained. "I don't think an assassin is what we need for a mission like this."

"I sent Mr. Krios the message you requested," Varia said, shuffling between datapads on her desk. She looked up at me with a frown. "I'm surprised he isn't here by now."

"We can afford to wait a bit longer," I answered, glaring at Jacob when he let out a disgruntled sigh.

We fell back into the slightly uncomfortable silence of before, but Kasumi moved over to Jacob's chair to bother him instead, much to my relief. I startled in my chair when my omni-tool vibrated and blared a siren: the emergency line. I hit the button to receive the call.

"I need you, Jacob, and Kasumi outside. We've got an emergency. All hands on deck," Shepard ordered.

"But we don't have Thane yet," I protested.

"We'll figure it out later. I need everyone _now_," Shepard repeated, practically growling. _Right. Not the time for arguing_.

I sprang from my seat and motioned the others to follow. I paused in the doorway, and turned back to Varia, who had nothing of the look of someone who'd just had her sister assassinated.

"Er, thank you anyway. For your help," I said.

"It was my pleasure," she answered easily. "Maybe I'll need help in the future."

I grimaced, not sure I liked the sound of that, but I nodded anyway, heading through the door and re-tracing my way back to the exit of the ship. We were barely past the exterior guards when the _Normandy_'s shuttle slammed down in front of us. The door opened and I saw Shepard, Mordin, Tali, Jack, Grunt, and Zaeed all crammed into the small space.

"Get in," Shepard ordered, her voice cracking like a whip.

I stared at Shepard's face, lit up like the neon signs of the Silversun Strip, but looked away quickly when she pinned me with a death glare. I joined Jacob and Kasumi in scrambling on without question, wedging the three of us into the already tight space. Awkwardly, I was forced to pin Shepard to the wall and support myself with my hands above her head to keep my weight from crushing her as she scowled to the side, though it was hard to tell whether that was because too many people were in her personal space or she was just that angry.

"Shepard…" I began.

"Do not say anything about the glowing, Garrus," Shepard hissed. "It's my cybernetics reacting to the fact that I am so unbelievably pissed that if this shuttle weren't so fucking useful, I would have ripped it in half with my bare hands."

My eyes widened. I was definitely standing too close to the rage. "Okay. Emergency. Fill us in."

"Miranda was taken," Shepard growled in explanation. "By, I suspect, her bastard of a father. EDI wasn't able to track her, but her omni-tool turned back on a few minutes ago and we got a location. And a message. It just said 'Hurry.'"

"Miranda's gone?" Jacob repeated. I saw his fist clench at his side.

Shepard answered with a sharp nod. "She was arranging safe transport for her sister out of Nos Astra. We found security footage of Miranda being pulled into a taxi at the stand where we were supposed to meet," Shepard elaborated, her eyes flashing a deeper red.

"Miranda has a sister?" Shepard softened just barely at the question, and I put a hand on the part of Jacob's shoulder I could reach. "She never told me. Said she was an only child," Jacob continued, his voice trailing off until he was only muttering to himself.

"Miranda likes her secrets," Shepard said. "I guarantee she only told me because she needed my help."

"Did you bring our gear?" I asked Shepard, redirecting the conversation.

She pointed to the lockers on the shuttle, and Zaeed caught the signal, pulling them open and passing over my distinct blue armor. Then came the acrobatics required to strap the pieces on in such a tight space. Shepard rolled her eyes and gave me help with some of the more difficult clasps.

"How do we know it was actually Miranda that sent the message?" I asked, worried.

The shuttle wobbled, and Shepard stumbled forward, grabbing onto the top of my chest plate. I grunted at the extra weight, but I was more surprised at the heat rolling off of her. Was that normal for all humans? Or a result of her glaring cybernetics?

"Sorry," Shepard said, disentangling her hands. "And we can't be sure it isn't a trap, especially considering all the cameras in that area have mysteriously shut down. Still, Dock 94 is where Oriana was supposed to leave out of, and I won't take the risk of leaving Miranda's kid sister exposed. So if it's a trap, it's a trap, but hopefully one that gets us closer to Miranda."

"Remind me why we give a fuck about the cheerleader's sister?" Jack jeered.

In that moment, I considered it a mercy that there were several bodies in between Shepard and Jack.

"For the same reason Miranda scheduled a stop on Pragia in two weeks," Shepard stated, snapping the words out with deceptive calm. Jack froze, looking confused, shocked even, and I glanced between the two, wondering what I was missing. _What was on Pragia?_ "A member of the crew made a personal request. And we will honor it," Shepard finished. "Besides, Oriana's still just a kid."

The shuttle landed down, and the pilot announced we'd reached our destination. Shepard was the first to jump down, stalking forward like a predator, and the small crowd around the taxi area immediately parted around her.

"Fan out," Shepard ordered. "We need to locate Oriana fast."

"How are we supposed to know what this girl looks like?" Tali asked. "No offense, but humans start to look really similar after a while."

"Oriana looks just like Miranda. Maybe her face is slightly rounder," Shepard stated. "They're almost identical, genetic twins or something. EDI actually got Oriana on camera earlier when we were scanning security footage for Miranda."

"Damn." I exhaled. I blinked to check my eyes.

"Yeah, I know–"

"No," I interrupted her, pointing. "I mean 'damn, you're right'. She's just over there."

Shepard followed my finger to where Oriana was standing with an older human couple, smiling at something they'd said. The girl looked eerily like a teenaged Miranda, but her expressions were foreign to the face I knew. Oriana smiled with abandon and her blue eyes were bright as she moved her hands along with her conversation, animating her words.

My chest twisted, just slightly, like I was seeing something I shouldn't be. It was almost like peering into an alternate universe to see what could have been instead of what was. Would this be Miranda without her father's influence? Granted, I didn't know much about the man, but the fact that he was willing to kidnap one daughter and steal the other from her family told me enough.

Too late, I realized Shepard was staring just as hard as I was, and we'd caught the attention of the teenager. I dropped the finger that was pointing at her, but Oriana's eyebrows were already furrowed, causing a crease between them that I'd already seen aboard the _Normandy_ a thousand times.

"Shit, what do we do?" I turned to Shepard.

"Introduce ourselves," Shepard said with a shrug. "Then we get her out of here."

Oriana watched us warily as we approached, her eyes flickering to her parents. The human couple turned around at whatever she said, and the man stepped out in front of them.

Shepard dove right in. "Hello, I'm Commander Shepard," she said, offering her hand. The man took it, but Oriana pushed forward.

"I know; I've seen you on the vids. You're supposed to be dead," Oriana said, eyebrows pulling down. "And not have strange glowing eyes."

"I was just trying to get out of paying my taxes," Shepard deadpanned, the joke falling flat with bad timing and Shepard's 'all-business' voice. "But in seriousness, Oriana–" The girl frown fixed firmly in place at the use of her name. Her steely expression mirrored her sister's so perfectly a chill ran up my spin. "–this is going to seem very sudden, but you're in danger. I need to get you and your family somewhere safe."

"What's this about? How do you even know us?" the man who was obviously Oriana's father demanded.

"There is someone looking for your daughter," Shepard explained. The two parents threw knowing glances between each other. "If you would just come with us, I'll tell you everything."

I pulled at Shepard's arm, dread pooling in my stomach. "Too late," I announced and motioned to the Eclipse shuttles landing down a small distance away. "Damn it, there's a lot of civilians here."

I surveyed the area. The docks worked in a block system. To the left and right, I could see Docks 93 and 95, separated completely from this one. A strip of walkway connected the exterior of this dock to the other ten in this district and also held the rapid transit taxi stands. There was one door to the large room we stood in, a room which acted as customs for incoming passengers but as a waiting area for outbound passengers. Through another door behind us was the actual dock. Only a small strip was enclosed and environmentally controlled, and it led directly to the airlock of the waiting transport. An elevator to the cargo bay blinked just inside inside the doors.

This dock was packed with people. They couldn't go through the one door because they wouldn't all fit in the small area that actually had air, and they couldn't go out to the taxi area because they would be running right into the mercenaries.

"Run to the doors!" Shepard ordered, pointing towards the taxis. "Block them getting in here. The civilians in the taxi area can evacuate to the sides, but these people have nowhere to go."

The seven squad members we had with us all started to the door, but Shepard grabbed Grunt's arm, then latching onto his chest plate and pulling his face down to her eye level.

"Grunt, you are going to watch Oriana," Shepard ordered. When the krogan frowned with discontent, she lowered her voice and growled, "This is Miranda's sister. You are now responsible for her. If so much as one hair on her head is harmed, Miranda will come here and _eviscerate_ you. Slowly. Do you understand?"

I laughed at Grunt's excited smile. He pulled his shotgun out and posted himself directly in front of Oriana. With that, Shepard turned and charged after our companions towards the door, myself directly behind her.

We walked through the doors to greet a dozen Eclipse mercenaries spread out in a semi-circle with two obvious leaders in the center, an asari and a human in black. The civilians were gone, as Shepard had predicted, likely running as soon as they'd seen guns out and ready by both parties, steady hands waiting. A black car appeared overhead and sank next to the asari. Another silent Eclipse mercenary stepped out and stopped next to the trunk of the car, a hand placed on it protectively.

"It's your lucky day, Commander," the asari stated.

"And why's that?" Shepard sneered.

"If you hadn't been tipped off, we would have easily accomplished what we wanted here," she replied. "However, now we're willing to give you your XO back."

A surge of blue flashed around Shepard as her whole body tensed. I hazarded a hand on her shoulder, and she settled herself, the built up energy flooding out and leaving my arm tingling.

"So you do have Miranda," Shepard gritted out.

"We do," the woman in black confirmed. Now that she had drawn attention to herself, something about the woman rubbed me the wrong way. She held herself tall, but had a way of flowing into the background. When her chin tipped up, I could see eyes that were a disconcertingly familiar shade of blue. "Our employer would like to speak to you about our terms."

The woman held an omni-tool to chest height and hit a button. A projection of a man in a tailored suit followed soon after, all his austere features showing as electric blue.

"Henry Lawson," he introduced himself unnecessarily. "I would like to offer a trade."

"I'd like to offer you a lot of things," Shepard threatened. "But do go on."

Mr. Lawson waved a hand, annoyed. "First I want to see Oriana. Make sure you haven't whisked her away somewhere," he ordered. When Shepard looked about to argue, his lips curled back in a scowl and motioned to the mercenary standing at the car trunk. "I see Oriana, or I kill Miranda in front of you."

Shepard's eyes locked onto the car now, then flickered to Miranda's father. "She's your daughter. You wouldn't kill her."

"Miranda is my property to do with as I wish. Considering she fired the first shots, I'd just be finishing what she started," he snapped, an ever-present sneer wrinkling his face. "But today, Miranda can be useful in acquiring the daughter that I _actually_ want." I gripped my assault rifle tighter at his words, grimacing in distaste. I even heard Tali mutter _bosh'tet_ behind me, and though I was surprised, I nodded my head at her in solidarity. "So what will it be?"

Shepard hesitated, and the silence and tension stretched as we all held a breath. Her eyes glanced to where I knew Oriana waited, and my stomach twisted at the impossible situation. I knew the same thoughts were echoed in Shepard's head, weighing whether the man would actually kill his own daughter or if he were bluffing. He'd make an enemy of the Illusive Man by killing Miranda, but it was possible he had enough resources to survive the blowback. So it came down to whether Shepard were really willing to hand over Miranda's sister to save her.

My tactical side said to do it: hand over the teenager because Miranda was more useful. But I'm not sure I'd be able to live with myself afterwards. Miranda, certainly, would hate Shepard forever if the commander allowed it.

"If I bring Oriana out, you have to show me Miranda. I'm not about to hand this girl over for a dead body," Shepard asserted.

Mr. Lawson smiled and nodded like that was to be expected, his holographic head turning to the asari mercenary waiting beside him. Shepard murmured something into her omni-tool, and I heard the docking door slide open behind us and Grunt's heavy footfalls as he walked through. A wide-eyed Oriana soon appeared between Shepard and me, and the commander took half a step in front of her, shielding the girl with her body as Mr. Lawson directed a satisfied grin at her. He snapped his fingers, and the driver of the car, who had been hovering by the car trunk, unlatched the trunk. The asari whipped out an arm, pulling a body out of the trunk biotically towards her and holding it hovering in the air. Oriana sucked in a loud breath.

Miranda looked like a wreck. A thin gash dragged all the way across her forehead, complemented by another on her cheekbone, but they were covered by smears of blood, too much to have been from the cuts. Half of her face was painted in the blood as well as what looked like much of her hair, judging by the awkward way it stuck against her skull. Still, it wasn't enough to hide the swelling in her cheeks and her lip. The slender column of her throat bent like Miranda couldn't bear the weight of her own head, and though her eyes were open, her pupils were twice their normal size. Any other injuries or bruising was covered by her still mostly intact Cerberus uniform, though it was covered in blood and grime, much like the rest of her.

I could see Shepard's jaw moving tightly in light of the reveal, each wiggled movement acting like a timer for her self-control. Her cybernetics were brighter than they'd ever been, shining through her skin to turn it a hellish red. But I could practically hear the gears grinding in her brain, working through scenarios to get to Miranda before they could crush her in biotics or shoot her.

Shepard glanced over to me and dragged her eyes pointedly down to her own hands, and I froze, looking back at Miranda. _There_. Miranda's handcuffs were loose on her wrists, and her dilated eyes were now zeroed in on Shepard instead of aimlessly directed forward.

Movement from the Eclipse merc that had been driving the car caught my eye. He moved like liquid, not like a mercenary should, but no one was paying him any mind with their focus on the ensuing standoff. He stopped just behind the asari maintaining the biotic field around Miranda.

The merc stepped past her, cementing my theory that he was no mercenary by acting in one fluid movement. He kicked into her knee so she fell, jammed his own knee into her back, and snapped her neck.

Time held still. Then everything erupted with gunfire.

XXX

Miranda

I landed hard against the ground once the biotic field dropped, hands barely coming up to protect my face. My forearms took most of the impact, and I grunted in pain before slipping my hands through the cuffs Thane and I had put back on for show. Thane himself was only a few steps from me, having removed his helmet like we'd discussed so the crew of the _Normandy_ wouldn't kill him with the other mercenaries. The crack of guns began sounding all around me, distracting my already slippery thoughts, and I tried shaking my head to ground myself. _No, that just hurts more_.

I saw the boots of my kidnapper racing past me, and I flung and arm out and latched on. She slammed into the ground and landed a hard kick against my ribs right before the cool tingle of a biotic barrier wrapped around me, and Shepard arrived next to me seconds later in a blaze of blue. From the corner of my eye, I saw a mercenary come around the car, but Shepard grabbed him with her biotics and pinned him to the ground as I scrambled forward to the woman I'd just tripped.

The woman was struggling to her feet, but drugged and injured or not, I could still be faster than a normal human. I surged forward and tackled her to the ground, shimming up her body to pin both of her arms with my knees. She struggled underneath me, kicking her legs, but I slammed her head into the ground, stunning her. I wrapped my hands around her neck.

"Not so much fun now that I can move, is it?" I growled down to her.

I had no gun, no biotics, and my reflexes were slowed, but I still knew exactly where to press my fingers down until the woman in black began to turn a satisfying shade of red. _She paralyzed me_. I dug my thumbs in harder. _She ripped out my amp_. She fought harder now, desperation giving her strength, but I sneered down at her and never relented. _The trunk. Niket_. I felt her heartbeat slowing underneath my thumb and her body went still.

I barred my teeth and snapped her neck, then I sank back on my heels, just staring at her. I'd sworn I wouldn't forget her face, and I hadn't. The woman had paid for what she'd done, all without my even having learned her name. Still, my victory didn't feel as rewarding as it should have.

"Miranda." Shepard's voice coming up behind me. There was no more gunfire; the fight was over.

I turned and tried to stand, but it was like the woman's stolen heartbeats had joined my own, my pulse racing in my chest. Shepard put a hand on my arm to help me, but I pushed her away, managing to stand on my own and walk to the still open car trunk.

Niket. Now that I was no longer trapped in with him, it was less like a nightmare. His body looked small and broken, not ghastly and horrifying. I leaned hard against the rim of the trunk, dropping to my knees when it was too hard to breathe.

Some part of me knew that I was dangerously close to breaking down, like watching myself from the outside. I had been drugged, punched, and locked in a car trunk with the dead body of my best friend, and I was tired. However, the tears prickling at my eyes were not an option: I had an audience.

"Where were you?" I snapped, twisting to see Shepard who'd walked up behind me.

"We were trying to find you–"

"You should have been faster," I bit out, but the words were slurred. I brought a hand up to my chest. My heart was pounding too fast. I gasped for air, putting a hand out to stop from crashing to the ground.

I was scooped into Shepard's arms instead, cradled against her chest. She looked down at me with a pained expression, and I realized her eyes were red instead of green. Yet, Shepard was also warm, so warm after hours in a trunk damp with blood. She brushed my hair out of my face, tucking it behind an ear, and I couldn't stop staring at her face, at all the freckles painted across her cheeks and the redness of her lip where she was biting it.

"Significant trauma to head," Mordin explained at her side, drawing my attention to the rest of the team that had gathered around us. "Drugs. Adrenaline of fight. Too much for her body. Likely disoriented. Overwhelmed."

"We'll get her to the medbay of the _Normandy_. It's closer than the hospital. Garrus, have Oriana and her family come with us," Shepard barked out orders, then focused back on me. Her next words came out in almost a whisper, soft and gentle. "You'll be okay."

I let my head rest against her armored chest, and darkness swam up to greet me.

The next thing I knew was Chakwas' voice, something soft under my head, and a hand trailing fingers through my hair while another wiped at my face with a what felt like a damp towel. I opened my eyes to see what looked like my face staring down at me: my face without my father's surgical 'corrections' on my chin and my cheeks. My heart trilled in my chest. _Oriana_. She was cradling my head in her lap with a gentle smile, carefully using a cloth to clean away the grime on my face.

"You're awake," Oriana said quietly, glancing up at Shepard and Chakwas, who were speaking with their backs to us. The medbay was packed still with squad members sprawled across the cots around the room. They were waiting for their post-mission evaluations, so I couldn't have been unconscious long.

"I am," I replied, surprised at how rough my voice sounded. I moved my mouth a few times, struggling for words, but Oriana was perceptive and barreled into a conversation.

"Grunt here kept me company during the fight," Oriana stated, patting Grunt's leg from where he sat next to her. I didn't need to look at him to know there was a huge grin on his face. Then Oriana beamed over at Jack, of all people, and said, "And your lovely friend here kept a barrier around us the whole time."

Jack scowled, but there almost seemed to be a tint of pink to her cheeks. She glared at me.

"There's no fucking way you two are related," she snapped, turning on her heel and walking to a cot farther away. She glanced back over her shoulder. "Also, your dad is a dick."

"Our dad," Oriana muttered, drawing the rag through my hair. She didn't seem to flinch away from the blood and grime at all, and I couldn't help but continue to stare up at her. _My sister_. Her eyes came to mine again. "Your commander said your name is Miranda. Miranda Lawson. You're my sister."

"Yes," I confirmed. My throat went impossibly tight with embarrassment. Here I was, meeting my sister for the first time, and I was lying in her lap like a child, battered and dirty. "I know it must seem like a big surprise, but I've hidden you from our father since you were very young. I simply made a mistake today: one that won't happen again."

"Not a mistake, I think. We're both still here, and I've finally met you," she replied kindly with another smile for me. I almost wanted to agree with Jack. Oriana may have looked like me, but she was so much _lighter_. She wasn't looking at me like I was a disappointment to her. Oriana was watching me like, well, like I'd always imagined I looked at her. Like she was _precious_. "I always wanted a sister."

I reached a hand up to touch her face, and she smiled that bright, beautiful smile back down to me. I managed to return the smile this time, but I still didn't trust myself to speak, so we stayed that way, just for a moment. One wonderful, perfect moment.

"So what happens now? I mean, now that I know about you," Oriana asked. "I'm reading into all sorts of things. Like my dad's new job: he said the new assignment just fell into his lap." Her eyes widened. "And my emergency contact at school! My file had a relative named that I'd never heard of. I even tried removing it once, but it was right back on the next day That was you?"

I laughed, wincing when it hurt my head, ribs, and face. _She's smart_, I glowed. " Most of it. As for what will happen now, I'll make new arrangements for your protection at home, as well as university if you wished to take your schooling away from your parents," I assured her. "We'll have to find a place for you and your parents to stay tonight, but I think I can manage to have everything settled by morning."

"Shepard made it sound like she had everything handled, and she already said we could stay on the ship for the night," Oriana assured me.

I frowned at the breach of security protocol and tried to push myself up, already swinging a leg over the side when a hand on my arm stopped me.

"Dr. Chakwas said I could only be here if you actually rested," she pointed out, something almost mischievous in her eyes as she said the one thing that would keep me in a bed. I sighed and resettled myself back on the pillows.

"Would you…" Oriana trailed off, eyebrows pulled down. "I have a lot of questions for you. I asked Shepard, but she said she didn't know all of the answers. And that it wouldn't be her place to tell anyway."

My eyes found the commander and traced along the line of her back, relieved. Shepard wasn't a woman I would normally associate with tact, but she had gotten that much right. There was much I didn't want Oriana to know, not just yet. In time we could speak about the details of our father or what I was currently doing with Shepard, but for now, I just wanted her not to worry. I didn't even know what to tell her and what not to. I hadn't expected to reveal myself to her yet. She was still so young.

Oriana watched me watch Shepard with a cryptic smile, and I hurriedly tore my eyes away.

"I will answer what I can," I promised her. "But you have to know there's a lot about me that I won't be able to tell you, like my work with Commander Shepard. And other than the general warning of don't go anywhere near him, I'm not sure I want you to know too much about our mutual biological father."

"Well, I did gather you worked for Cerberus," Oriana stated, pointing to the dirty but still visible logo of my uniform. It was the first time I ever regretted not being discrete in my outfit, even though I knew the medbay walls were covered in the same logo, and my stomach twisted at the thought. _When had I become ashamed of who I worked for?_ But Oriana didn't seem to be looking at me with judgement, just making an observation.

I decided right then and there that my sister was the most incredible person in the entire universe. I barely knew her. She barely knew me, but I would give her everything, anything she ever wanted.

"Yes," I admitted. "Though it's against many rules for you to know that. To be on this ship at all, actually."

She flashed a pleased smile, her cheeks bunching up the skin at her eyes. "I can keep a secret," she said with a wink. She looked over, and I followed her gaze to see Shepard and Chakwas had noticed that I was awake. "The doctor did ask me to keep this short," Oriana admitted. "It's already late, and we don't have to do all of this today, right? You'll be in touch now?"

My heart squeezed at the simple question. _Yes, now._ Now I could contact her. I could speak to her when I wanted. _Why hadn't I done this all along?_

"I will," I promised her. "We'll talk in the morning, and I'll give you my contact information."

"Good. Then I'll let the important people talk to you. It looks like they're waiting." I wanted to protest her words. She was the only important person I cared about. "Grunt needs to finish telling me about the book you two were reading together anyway," Oriana finished, a playful twinkle in her eye. She hopped off the bed, squeezing my hand before she danced away, leaving me feeling lost even as she stood a few steps away.

Shepard took the place Oriana vacated, the bed bending down under the weight again until our hips were touching. The contact wasn't as comforting as usual, and it almost hurt to look at her.

"The Illusive Man called to talk to you while you were out," Shepard stated, business first as usual. "He didn't seem surprised to hear you'd been taken. But he said that he was personally arranging Oriana's new location. The flight will be in the morning at 0700."

_No, he wouldn't have been surprised_, I thought, but I dismissed any thought of taking my newfound suspicions to Shepard.

Likewise, I couldn't confront the Illusive Man directly, ask him if he'd taken my father's deal. I knew what he'd give me anyway: a non-denial denial. He hadn't said yes, but he hadn't said no either. I was sure whatever my father had offered had been tempting. Perhaps they would have convinced me that Oriana had been killed so I'd never think to go after her. That's how I would have arranged it anyway. Then the Illusive Man would have me with no baggage.

I curled my fists, tired of feeling like I was owned by one party or another. I'd heard my father refer to me as his _property_, and I hardly needed confirmation to know that I had been bartered between the two men with no thought for me or what I wanted.

I was shaken, my world view just a little crooked from where it had been before. I had always liked the Illusive Man's no-nonsense treatment of me. I liked knowing my place. But I wasn't sure what I was feeling now, now that I knew I would take his resources in the morning not out of a feeling of receiving my due, but because I needed them to protect Oriana. There were cameras to wipe and police officers to pay off. There was a docking worker who had to be convinced to write down Oriana and her family as non-humans under their fake names to make them harder to follow. New jobs needed to be found for Oriana's parents so she would be well taken care of. Their true location would have to be buried under layers of encryption in Cerberus' secure servers. I just didn't have the capital to do that on my own, even with my generous paycheck, because my father always had more.

I had run from one trap right into another. _No, the Illusive Man wouldn't have betrayed me. He wouldn't._

"Hey, what's that look for? I thought this was a good thing?" Shepard asked, concerned.

"The Illusive Man's personal interest didn't seem to protect Oriana today," I replied vaguely, forcing my voice to stay even.

Shepard narrowed her eyes with a grimace before releasing a sigh. She glanced away. "At the risk of making you angry with me, I did call in a few favors."

"Favors for what?" I asked.

"Well, after meeting your sister, I just didn't want your father to get another chance at her. I'm not sure if this is going to piss you off or not, but I called a few guys that are willing to run protection for her for a few months. They're good; I met them in N training. They said they'd keep Oriana safe for the next few months, until after the mission when we can find a more _permanent_ solution for keeping your father's hands off her," Shepard offered. "But they'll be able to move her at a moment's notice if need be."

Relief uncoiled the tension in my stomach. A back-up plan was certainly welcome, and I re-evaluated my suspicions from earlier. Voluntarily offering help for my sister wasn't exactly the actions of someone who had planned to leave me to my father.

"I...would appreciate that, Commander," I said genuinely. "Your help in this doesn't upset me at all."

"Good, so you won't protest when I _help_ you to your room then. Chakwas said as long as someone wakes you every few hours to check on your head, you could sleep in your own bed," Shepard said.

"I guess EDI will be doing the waking?" I asked.

Shepard bit her lip. "I actually volunteered for the job. Besides, I gave Oriana and her parents my cabin, so I didn't really expect to sleep much anyway."

"Oh," I replied, surprised.

Shepard reached to help me out of the bed, but I snatched my arm back. "Please, don't," I snapped. I took a deep breath at Shepard's hardened expression. "I can walk on my own. And I've had enough manhandling for one day."

"You tackled a woman like some sort of secret agent earlier. I'm fully aware of your capabilities, including those of walking," Shepard replied, her smirk slowly coming back. "But it's still a little easier if you lean on someone else every now and again."

I looked over at her, catching the double meaning of her words. Then I put a hand on her shoulder and let her take some of my weight as we started out of the medbay, purposefully ignoring her smug little smile. I was tired, admittedly, and Shepard's support was helping me walk straight. Not that I'd tell her that.

We crossed through an empty mess hall as many of the squad members had already disappeared to their beds, and I waved at Oriana and her parents as they went into the elevator to go up to Shepard's cabin.

"You know I _am_ actually a secret agent," I retorted eventually as we walked into my room.

Shepard laughed, and I smiled along with her until I let go of her and moved to my closet.

"You could sleep in here if you like. There's plenty of room," I offered, leaving the rest to her interpretation.

She nodded. "I'll take the couch or something."

I smiled to show I'd heard then grabbed clothes to sleep in before walking gingerly into my bathroom. Shepard had obviously bathed and changed already, but I was still covered in things I didn't want to think about. I turned the shower up as hot as I could stand and worked on not noticing exactly what was washing out of my hair.

It was tempting to offer for Shepard to help me—not the least because it was really painful to wash my back with cracked ribs—but even if it weren't a _terrible_ idea, I doubted she would even take it. She probably wasn't even thinking about me after meeting Liara today, the same way she was so focused on her that she hadn't seen me being taken only a few meters away from her. Not that I blamed Shepard for that. Mostly.

I pressed my forehead against the shower wall, allowing myself a minute to try to untangle the mess of emotions clamoring for my attention. Then when I was as clean as I could manage, I towel dried my hair and brushed it out before slipping into the clothes I'd brought in with me, and old t-shirt and shorts. I'd grabbed actual clothing instead of just sleeping in my underwear because of the company in my room. Because, naturally, it would be unprofessional to try and tempt Shepard by going out barely clothed. That's what I reminded myself anyway, no matter what the Illusive Man hinted at.

Shepard was seated on the corner of my bed when I walked out, though she had thrown a pillow and blanket on the couch, and her face was drawn in the way that meant she wanted to talk about something. I rounded the bed to the left side, crawled into the covers, and waited as EDI began to dim the lights.

"Are you alright?" Shepard asked eventually, her voice muted by that instinct to stay quiet in the dark.

"I heal fast. My ego is more bruised than anything, I suppose," I replied. I turned onto my side to face her, but that hurt my ribs so I flipped onto my back.

"You know what I meant," Shepard said. "I'm not buying the whole emotionless robot routine. Not after seeing you with your sister–"

"Shepard," I interrupted. "I have no interest in talking about my father or most of what happened today."

"–I know I'm probably not the person you want to talk to. But you should talk to someone, a friend…"

"I have colleagues, not friends," I broke in again. "Niket…" I hated how my voice shook on the name. "...was my best friend. My _only _friend. And my father had him killed. So, no, even if I felt like sharing, there aren't exactly a lot of candidates for me to talk to."

She swung her legs up and shimmied across the bed until she was close enough to grab my hand, interlacing our fingers and squeezing until my stomach fluttered.

"That's not true," she argued. "Grunt spends every travel day glued to your couch, and Garrus definitely warmed up to you. Kasumi isn't exactly a traditional friend, but she seems fond of you in her weird way. The others will come around too. Well, probably not Jack, no offense, but the point is you're not alone here."

"I felt alone today." I locked my jaw and looked away from her, even as her grip on my hand tightened. "I spent hours in a trunk covered in my best friend's blood. _Hours_, Shepard, where I was drugged and tossed around. And it didn't sound like you were coming. I understand after our past history that you might have wanted–"

"Woah, no!" she exclaimed, her face twisting in horror. "Miranda, I wasn't going to let them take you. I was coming for you. The fact that your sister was at the same dock just worked out in our favor, or I would have split the team."

"And my father's deal? If you'd actually been forced to decide, would you have let them take my sister?" I asked.

Shepard made a frustrated noise in her throat, grimacing as she bit her lip.

"You know the answer to that," she stated, moving to the edge of the bed again, presumably to go back to the couch. "You just don't like it."

"But if this had happened a month ago, back when you still hated me…" I trailed off, knowing I was pushing the boundaries of our fragile working relationship. Still, I wanted to know.

"Miranda," she stopped me quietly. "I still would have come for you, even then."

I stared at her back as she turned away, sinking back into my pillow. She hadn't been planning on leaving me. She wasn't another betrayal to mark down for the day. Shepard was...Shepard. At times unpredictable, but steady when it matters. One would think my two years of research into her would have taught me to trust her more than I had.

As she shifted again, I realized I didn't want her to go, didn't want her to let go of my hand.

"You could stay up here," I offered. She stopped with one leg over the edge of the mattress. "The bed is big, and I know from personal experience how uncomfortable that couch is. To be honest, I chose them as an attempt to keep people from wanting to stay in my office too long."

"That doesn't seem to be working too well for you," Shepard replied with a small huff of a laugh.

I could see that she had turned to look at me, but I couldn't see much of her face in the dark. I wondered if she was thinking about the same night that I was, how this night could progress much the same way but with less alcohol.

"No, it doesn't," I agreed.

She hesitated only a moment longer before hopping down and rounding the bed to actually crawl under the covers. I tried not to think about the fact that she was going to sleep next to me all night, or the very cliché situation I'd put myself in. I definitely didn't think about how pleased I was that she'd settled herself comfortably close to the middle of her side instead of pushing closer to the edge.

"It was wrong of me to hate you. Today, more than anything, has proven you are not the woman I thought you were," Shepard mumbled eventually, burrowing farther down under the blanket. "My anger was...misplaced. So if you're willing to forgive me, I'd be happy to be a friend instead of a colleague."

My throat went tight as her words sank in. Silence blanketed over us until Shepard's breathing started to get slow and even.

"Shepard?"

"Yes?" she hummed.

"There's nothing to forgive," I murmured.

* * *

**Alright, so this took a little longer than planned. I had a 10,000 word chapter mostly written when I posted ch.18, which is why I promised it would be out quickly because of that cliffhanger. Buuuuut then I hated it, scrapped it, and wrote an entirely new chapter. I hope everyone likes the rewrite. **

**I'm really fond of how Thane's mission got twisted into the plot, so I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts about it (polite criticisms accepted as well, of course). And, naturally, did you like how Miranda's loyalty mission was resolved? Writing Oriana was challenging because the game skipped over that conversation, and it was hard to try to get that feeling of sisters who are just meeting for the first time (even though Miranda knows everything about her. Because she doesn't learn about other people normally, like actually talking to them. Seriously, one of these days, someone is going to come along and know every detail of Miranda's life, and she's just gonna sit there like...I don't enjoy being on this end of the research)**

**Anyway, I can't wait to hear what you think. Thanks to everyone who reviews and those that have followed and favorited this fic! I can't believe I'm over 100 followers now!**


	20. Side Effects

**There is a possible trigger warning for this chapter. There is minor drug use (the chemical from Samara's mission). It is in Garrus' section, so please be aware. **

* * *

Chapter 20: Side Effects 

Miranda

I awoke, still tired, to my alarm blaring at 0530. I turned without opening my eyes, reaching for my alarm clock out of instinct but not conscious enough to do anything but halfheartedly notice the unusual warmth lingering in the bed with me.

"EDI, status report," I mumbled out of habit.

"Thirteen crew members are at their stations. Crewman Patel has overslept and is among the ten crew members that remain asleep–"

"Wake her up," I interrupted. I waited a moment, my mind briefly registering that EDI was speaking to me more quietly than usual, though I didn't care enough to ask her why. "Continue, EDI."

There was something pressing against my throat, and I turned my head in irritation, cursing that I'd worn a shirt to bed last night. It always pulled tight with my restless sleeping.

"Biometric scans are within normal range for ninety-five percent of the crew. I have excluded Mr. Krios from this evaluation due my lack of a baseline for his health. Of the remaining five percent, an irregular emotional state has been detected in Jack, and you, Operative Lawson, continue to have unhealed injuries. Your presence is expected in the medbay upon beginning your day."

I mentally put visiting the medbay on my to-do list for the morning and shifted my hips to the right to get rid of the blanket that must have twisted between my legs in the night. The weight didn't move, and I could feel the crease developing between my eyebrows with my growing frustration, even as I kept my eyes closed like that might extend the moment before I had to get up.

"I have also rechecked the inventory," EDI continued to speak in the background, "and sent Crewman Mills a list of supplies to restock today, minus the items you requested to handle personally. The _Normandy _will be ready to leave port tomorrow morning."

I hummed a little in my throat at that. Leaving Nos Astra was going to be the best part of my week, I decided. But even as I did so, I frowned at the realization that there was something so very _warm_ touching against my ribcage, and I couldn't place why it would be there.

"I have also continued to record Commander Shepard's sleeping habits, per your request. Detailed analysis may be accessed on your console. However, it is of note that this previous night cycle constituted the most hours of sleep she has gotten in twenty-six days. It is possible this anomaly is related to her location in your bed, though further data would be required to prove this assessment."

My eyes sprang open as my breath caught, staying trapped in my lungs as I slowly took in Shepard completely sprawled, face down, across my body, her face nuzzled into the juncture of my neck and shoulder.

"Thank you, EDI," I breathed out my customary response, now wary of waking Shepard as my entire body kicked into an unpleasant awareness that started with me noticing that one of Shepard's legs had been kicked over to tangle between mine, and her hand had found its way under my shirt and was tucked against my ribcage as she clutched me to her. Her lips pressed against my skin, and warmth pooled into my stomach with a rush.

My alarm rang again, and Shepard wiggled her hips forward until she was pressed completely against my side, grumbling a protest against my neck that sent a pleasant shiver down my spine. I hurriedly reached out to pound the snooze button and was successful, but I knocked the appliance to the ground in the process. I scowled at it from where it blinked up at me from the floor, trying to ignore the fire that ran through my whole body.

_Okay, what to do about this?_ I tried to pull Shepard's hand out of my shirt, but that only made her hold on tighter and press her knee up. I let out something dangerously close to a whimper and relaxed against my pillow. _I knew I should have done a one-nighter that last time we were on the Citadel._ The partner choices weren't always the best—I hadn't found a candidate with a clean medical record since our stop on Omega—but most times it achieved the desired result. Unlike this, where Shepard's body was touching against all the right places, but still I knew I needed it to _stop_. Shepard was asleep; she didn't know what she was doing.

I glanced down at the profile of her stubbornly sleeping face and pursed my lips. Last night felt like one large blur. I remembered her waking faithfully every four hours to ask me questions and check my head, but no where in there did I remember her getting so _close_.

I was apparently going to have to wake her up or just wait until she woke on her own, wherein we would have to deal with this...situation. I could only just see the peaceful expression decorating Shepard's face where it was burrowed into my neck, but it was enough to make me feel guilty about any attempt to wake her before she was ready. Not only did she get a patchwork sleep like me, but I knew her nights were plagued by nightmares that didn't let her sleep the whole night through on a normal basis, even if I hadn't noticed any last night.

Well, I could let my reports wait, and I didn't need to get dressed to send off my sister just yet. So I stayed still and let her hold me, deceiving myself into thinking I was a martyr and not actually enjoying this. Shepard's lips brushed against my neck again, and I sucked in a breath, willing my body to _just bloody calm down_ as I rested my cheek just briefly against the top of her head and closed my eyes. _Oh, Shepard, what are you doing to me?_

The alarm rang again from the floor, and I grabbed it with my biotics and smashed it against the metal wall. I felt Shepard's eyelashes flutter against my collarbone, and I braced for the moment to come. Shepard would either mumble some other name, revealing who she was really dreaming about while clinging to me or just scramble away in horror. Because I had set up this perfect cliche all by myself, and that's how they always ended. For people like me, that is.

"Miranda?" Shepard asked throatily, and the heat went rushing right back to my core. She buried her face harder into my neck as the lights started to come on with all the movement. Her hand moved from my ribs to splay across my stomach, and electricity danced across my skin with it. "What time is it?"

"Almost six," I answered, keeping my tone cool. I didn't know what to do with my hands. Leaving them placed against her waist and the top of her back felt too intimate with her awake. Putting them on her shoulders felt awkward. I dropped them to the bed, feeling like a stiff doll.

Shepard made a disgusted noise in her throat and didn't move.

"I could really use the restroom," I said, which wasn't true, but the weight of her was actually getting painful for my ribs. And painful for other things as well. Still, Shepard didn't react at all, her response nothing but peaceful breathing flickering across my skin. "But that would require you to let go of me."

Shepard's head popped up suddenly, and she stared down at me, her eyes going wide as she took in our bodies tangled together. Her cheeks flushed, pink spreading over them before tinging the tips of her ears.

"Oh, shit, wow," she stuttered. Chagrined, she pulled her hand from my stomach, and her face turned an even deeper shade of red when she pulled my shirt back into place for me before she rolled back to her side. "I promise I had no intentions of assaulting you while you were sleeping."

"It was nothing," I said with a shrug, sliding out of my bed away from her so I wouldn't give anything away with my face. I was still surprised at her reaction, at its lack of anger or frantic panic.

Shepard opened her mouth like she was going to say something but bit her lip instead, so I turned my back to her and walked to my now very scarce closet to grab a clean uniform, brushing some lint off the black cloth before grabbing my boots.

Shepard made a disgusted noise behind me, and I frowned, glancing back at her over my shoulder.

"How is it even possible that you look like that after just waking up?" Shepard asked, pulling a pillow over her face. "And I know you heal fast, but geez, your face isn't even swollen anymore from yesterday."

"Would you rather it was?" I asked, my eyebrows dropping down. I brushed my fingers along my face, tracing the faint line that I could still feel on my cheek and forehead, significantly healed from the gashes they'd been yesterday.

"No, of course not." Shepard scowled at me from around her pillow.

"I see someone isn't a morning person," I mocked.

"Like you didn't know that already. Also, save your judgement until after you find all the pieces of your broken clock," Shepard growled, muffled against the pillow. "I'm not fixing that again."

I smiled at the lump that was her body buried under the covers and disappeared into my bathroom, sliding the door carefully shut behind me. I brushed my teeth, cleaned my face, and applied the barest touches of makeup to cover the still healing pink lines. Then I re-wetted my hair, applied product, and began blowing it out, carefully arranging the light waves around my face and shoulders.

All in all, I thought I'd provided plenty of time for Shepard to take the easy option of escape from my bedroom.

I finally turned and went back to the doorway, faltering before going through. Shepard was still curled up beneath my blankets, a mess of dark auburn hair poking above the top of the covers that rose and fell steadily once more. It was suddenly much harder to stamp down the affection that had begun to glow every time I looked at her.

The sound of my office door unlatching grabbed my attention before it whirred open, and I walked all the way out of the bathroom as Shepard moaned what sounded like 'no' loudly into the blankets.

"Miranda, you said we could talk this morning before we had to go and...oh–" she stopped herself, eyebrows flying up as she caught sight of the person sized piled of blankets on my bed. "I'm so sorry. Everyone said it would be fine for me to come in. I didn't realize…"

I smiled at her, schooling my features until outwardly I was calm and collected. _There is nothing strange happening here. Everything is fine_.

"That's just Shepard," I explained, putting emphasis on the 'just.' "You weren't interrupting anything; she only needed a bed last night."

"Oh, right…" Oriana replied, trailing off when Shepard stumbled out of the bed, her feet thumping loudly against the floor. Her legs were a distracting expanse of bare skin as she fumbled for the pants she'd kicked off last night and ran a hand through her disastrous hair. Then she walked straight to my closet and traded her shirt for one of mine, the material stretching over her much larger shoulders. My jaw dropped in disbelief.

Oriana narrowed her eyes, and I smiled at her with raised eyebrows. "Breakfast?" I asked.

"That would be great," Shepard answered instead, walking up to us. My office door opened for her, but she paused then turned back around, wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me to her. She brushed a kiss against my cheek, and I flinched back in shock. "I'll get the coffee if you get me some pancakes, honey." She winked at me as she walked out the door.

"_Just_ Shepard, huh?" Oriana said suspiciously.

I stared after her, my skin on fire where her lips had touched. "I...She...Let's just get some food," I spat out eventually, ignoring that my heart was racing and that at least a few of the crew members already sitting down in the mess had seen.

My sister and I went through the breakfast line, and Shepard seated herself at one of the tables with the coffees, as promised. I sighed and grabbed her the pancakes she asked for, which had Oriana grinning at me.

"Honey?" I hissed in her ear once I'd slid in next to her. "What do you think you're doing?"

"You just made it so easy," she whispered back, "stuttering to explain what I was doing in your room. I couldn't help myself."

"I do not stutter," I hissed back, sipping my coffee to cover my mouth.

"Oh, but you did." Shepard winked at me before turning her attention to my sister. "Glad to see you taking the discovery of your genetic twin so well. I, for one, can only be happy that such a beautiful smile exists in duplicate," Shepard said with a genuine smile of her own. I almost choked on my coffee.

Oriana looked pleased even as she rolled her eyes. "You're certainly less scary without the glowing eyes," she replied.

"Oh." I jolted in remembrance and covered Shepard's hand with my own before I remembered myself and pulled away. Shepard, on her part, never flinched at my touch, and I filed the deviation away to contemplate later. "I almost forgot about that. We'll need to do updated scans."

"Oh, look at the time, I have to disappear somewhere for no apparent reason. With these pancakes," Shepard said with a smirk, hopping up from the bench. "Were you cleared for our mission later?"

I looked to check that Dr. Chakwas was safely ensconced in the medbay with the door closed.

"Well if someone were to override the doctor's orders and give me medical clearance for the day…" I trailed off suggestively with another glance towards Chakwas. My clearance was the only one I didn't have access to, and without access or someone to override it, my personal gear locker would remain locked, though emergency weapons were still available, of course.

Shepard narrowed her eyes at me then jammed a finger into my side. I hissed as she made contact with my still bruised ribs.

"That's a no," Shepard said, lips curling into another infuriating smile as she sauntered off. "I'll see you two soon."

With the absence of our buffer, Oriana and I sat looking at each other in silence for a moment, uncomfortable. I twisted my hands under the table. I didn't know how to act around family other than my father, and he was easy because I automatically defaulted to trying to kill him.

Then Oriana gave me the smallest smile, and the tension broke. I motioned for Oriana to hold out her omni-tool, and I typed in my personal contact information. I held her hand gently for a second more after finishing.

"My address, just like I promised. You can contact me anytime you need me," I assured her.

"Will I ever get to see you again?" she asked. She twisted her hands in front of her. "It's just...It might be nice for you to visit. In person. We could get to know each other."

I wavered on the automatic answer. After all, we hadn't been calling this operation a 'suicide mission' for nothing.

"When this is over, I would love to come visit you," I replied, careful to avoid binding words like 'promise.'

"Good," Oriana said, adding a smile that seemed to curl up as naturally for her as breathing. I wished I could say the same. "Well, there's some time yet. Why don't we start with where you were born? You have an accent."

I blinked at her, surprised, as I realized she wasn't preparing to rush off the ship as quickly as possible. She sat comfortably in her seat, hands wrapped around a mug while she stared at me expectantly. In short, she was trying to draw the conversation out. A pleasant warmth glowed in my chest at the final conclusion: Oriana enjoyed my company. That wasn't something I could say very often.

I picked up my drink and readied myself for a barrage of questions while I thought of a few of my own. After all, it was my last half hour with my sister, and it might very well be a long time before I could see her again.

XXX

Garrus

The mission to recruit the Justicar was a cakewalk (even though I wasn't entirely sure why humans used that term _cakewalk_. Shepard had explained it to me once, but I still didn't understand the purpose of walking in a circle to get some cake. Did the humans not have these things in their stores?). We'd dealt with the police around the spaceport easily enough, and our biggest obstacle was the Eclipse mercs roaming the back alley of this crime scene. However, this faction was known more for their smuggling—they were operating out of a spaceport after all—and I recognized the fumblings of raw recruits and those that hadn't had to handle a gun in a long while among most of the Eclipse teams we encountered.

Yet, as simple as the fighting was, I wagered one of us was still going to end up in a medbay today. And that person was a persistent quarian named Tali.

"Could we please stop talking about this?," Shepard growled, dropping into cover behind some piled up shipping crates.

"Talking? Who's talking? Not you certainly," Tali rejoined from a few meters away.

"I remember the missions with the first _Normandy_ being so much quieter," Shepard grumbled.

"That's because you were broody," Tali replied. She threw an arm forward, pointing out the last enemy for her drone, before coming back to the conversation. "This is what friendship sounds like."

"Annoying and invasive?" Shepard asked, raising an eyebrow as she surveyed the cleared out hallway. "I much prefer Garrus' version: standing there. _Silently_."

"That's because you two never talk about how you're feeling," Tali argued.

"That's not true. Shepard and I could talk about feelings," I protested. Shepard grimaced at me and I amended, "Okay, maybe not."

"Look, I gave you a day because of all that was happening yesterday–" Tali continued, jogging to catch up to Shepard, who was already stepping over the Eclipse merc bodies and storming forward through the shipping area.

"Oh, you mean the part where one of our squad was kidnapped and almost brutally murdered?" Shepard snapped.

"I'm not sure why you're so worked up over that. That's practically a normal day for you, and she's fine," Tali retorted. "What's not fine is you refusing to talk about you and Liara. I understood on the ship because you don't want Cerberus listening, but I, however, am your friend whom you've told absolutely nothing."

"You'd know even less if you hadn't been eavesdropping," Shepard growled. Her breath huffed noisily through the comms as we sidestepped around a corner and began jogging up the stairs.

"I just can't believe you let her break up with you. After all, you apparently proposed marriage to her two years ago," Tali replied, putting her hands on her hips. "And you didn't even bother to mention it."

"What? Marriage?" I blurted out, looking between the two.

Shepard scowled, a dangerous glint to her eyes. "If I had ever _actually_ proposed to Liara, I would have told you," Shepard answered finally, jaw locked tight. "There was no proposal. Just me failing to talk about where our future was going, which is, apparently, nowhere. Are you happy now? Will you leave it alone?"

Any response from Tali was cut short as Shepard held a fist up to signal a stop. She slowed as she approached a corner, leaned around to see, and held up three fingers to indicate the number of enemies.

I frowned. Crime scene or no, the Illium police didn't have the resources to put a check on the powerful group's movements, so we'd been fighting our way through to contact our potential new squadmate, the asari Justicar Samara. However, for a Justicar supposedly assisting the police in the investigation of this crime, she had left no small number of mercenaries alive behind her. Or perhaps the Eclipse mercs had known better than to mess with her, though, sadly, that common sense hadn't been extended to us.

The newest bunch of mercenaries was easily dispatched, and we moved on. Shepard led, naturally, followed by myself and Tali, and a strangely quiet Jack brought up the rear. The surly biotic was, at least, finally outfitted in proper gear, however, so I attributed her silence in part to being forced to wear armor that she wasn't used to. Or maybe something was actually bothering her, but she and I had worked out a strict don't-talk-to-me-unless-necessary policy that I had no plans to break. I didn't relish the thought of another visit to the medbay, after all.

But Jack was warming up to me. I could tell.

Meanwhile, Shepard hit the latch on the door ahead of us, and we were greeted to the sight of an asari in Eclipse armor hurtling through the air to land on the ground near us, followed by another asari that could only be Samara. She cut an impressive figure in her tight red suit as she followed her quarry, and she landed out of a biotically controlled drop with a grace I didn't think was possible in the heeled boots she was wearing. Maybe she used her biotics for more than just the biotic flying thing she was pulling off there.

"Tell me the name of the ship," Samara insisted, standing over the prone mercenary.

The merc looked up at the Justicar in defiance, but the expression was met with stony indifference. Samara extended an elegant arm, letting her wrist relax until the moment biotics rippled around her. Her hand clenched, and her fingers bent like claws while ribbons of biotics circled the mercenary's body. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before: the biotics flowed out as a strange reddish violet color. Then, instead of ribbons, the biotics thinned and stretched until I recognized they were overlaying every nerve in the asari merc's body.

Samara curled her fingers further, and the biotic tendrils lit up. The mercenary screamed.

"Holy shit, she can reave," Shepard muttered next to me.

"One last opportunity to tell me," Samara said, loosening her fingers again. The biotics dimmed, and the merc relaxed against the ground.

"She'll hurt me in ways you can't even imagine. And it's death either way, so you might as well get this over with," the mercenary spat.

"Find peace in the embrace of the Goddess," Samara replied. She closed her fist fully, and her biotics relit in a bright flash. The mercenary's neck went slack, and her head rolled to the side, blood dripping from her nose.

Samara looked up at our group, then past us to the bodies strewn behind the doorway we'd just walked through.

"We seem to have a common enemy," she said shortly. "But you have not put away your weapons. So, are you friend or foe?"

"Friends, definitely. We're here to find you. I'm hoping to recruit you for my mission." When Samara simply stared back, Shepard continued to explain, "We're working to save thousands of human colonists from a race called the Collectors." She looked over her shoulder and nodded to Tali and Jack, and they turned to cover the door.

Samara considered us, her eyes running along the two humans, a quarian, and a turian.

"A noble goal, and one I might be happy to assist with. But abandoning my investigation is against the Code; I cannot leave without first discovering the name of the ship my quarry left on. If the trail goes cold, I might never find her," Samara disclosed.

"So you're willing to help me if I help you?" Shepard clarified.

"Yes," Samara answered.

"Well, then. Where to?"

"The only option left to me is to infiltrate the Eclipse base. However, I have no means to access the door, and resistance will be heavy inside. I have also displeased the local police force with my presence here," Samara explained.

Shepard gave a sheepish shuffle of her feet. "Don't worry about the police. I 'arrested' Detective Anaya under Spectre authority for the next hour so she would leave us alone without disobeying orders. Off to the base then?"

Samara stared at Shepard for a moment but then nodded and fell in with our group as we backtracked through the alleys the way we'd come. We moved faster than before, relatively confident in the safety of the area, though Shepard still slowed and did a quick sweep anytime we approached an unsecured exit.

"So Liara wants to speak to you before you leave…" Tali instigated as we moved forward, and I sighed at her stubbornness. Shepard's patience was surely at its end. I didn't actually think she would shoot Tali to get her to be quiet, but I could guarantee she was seriously considering it if the sneer on her face was any indicator.

"Are you monitoring my messages as well?" Shepard exclaimed, scowling at Tali. The commander looked over at Samara. "Typically, we like to make a good impression on the people we're recruiting, Tali. Not scare them away by talking about my personal problems."

"So you admit there's a problem!" Tali replied triumphantly.

Jack growled from my right side, probably as tired of this conversation as I was. "The only fucking reason Shepard isn't upset is because she already moved on," the biotic grunted.

"What? I haven't," Shepard denied, her shoulders freezing in place. "But I did have two months of Liara not contacting me when she could have. I can connect the dots. I was expecting this. That's all."

"So that wasn't you leaving the cheerleader's bedroom this morning? And kissing her on your way out?" Jack countered, crossing her arms as she walked. "The two engineering idiots were talking about it on the stairs."

"You didn't…" I muttered, and Shepard held her palms out towards me in protest.

"That is being taken completely out of context," Shepard contested.

"So you didn't kiss her?"

"I...did." She paused with a scowl. "Stop talking," Shepard growled.

We'd arrived at the Eclipse base door, and Shepard pressed her omni-tool to the latch and remotely connected EDI to the system. EDI set to hacking through the security while Shepard pressed her back to the metal of the door and held her gun loosely in front of her, military training teaching to always be wary even though it seemed that the only people around were a few civilians.

"So, uh, how did she react?" I asked Shepard quietly while we waited.

Shepard glared at me in clear exasperation. "Like I embarrassed her in front of her sister, which was the point," she replied. "And also like she wasn't interested, so you can just get that idea out of your head, Garrus."

Jack snorted. "Or the cheerleader doesn't know how to react to things like a human being. Cerberus probably handed her an instruction manual on how to have emotions and then sent her out into the world."

"Or this is an important mission, and Miranda knows how to be a professional. Something you could learn a little something about," Shepard warned, but the tattooed biotic just scowled back.

"Not fucking likely. I'm not even sure why we didn't trade her for her sister while we had the chance. Same great tits without the attitude that makes me want to punch her in the face," Jack continued.

"Among other things," Shepard added with a raised eyebrow, earning another scowl. "I think the fact that you like Miranda's twin but not Miranda says something, but I'm just not sure what that is."

"Fuck off with your analyzing shit, Shepard," Jack replied.

"Wow, pulling out the big words today," Shepard retorted with a smirk that Jack rolled her eyes at.

_I work with children_, I grumbled in my head, staring at the two of them while the door to the Eclipse base finally slid open, and the five of us prepared our weapons for the wave of Eclipse sisters that would surely respond to the security breach. We didn't have to wait long, but with Tali and myself overloading weapons and the three powerful biotics wiping up the rest, the LOKI mechs and accompanying mercenaries went down easily.

Shepard crouched next to a nearby crate with chemical hazard marks decorating the sides.

"What are these you think?" Shepard asked the group at large.

"It is a chemical called Minagen X3. It enhances biotic powers but is toxic in high doses," Samara offered. "The volus who sold it to Eclipse neglected to mention that fact. By the Code, his life is forfeit should we come across him."

Shepard shrugged and cut open the box with her omni-tool. She held up a vial of red powder, inspecting it in the light, before popping the tab on the top and pouring a small amount into a slot on her omni-tool. After a few seconds, her omni beeped at her, and Shepard nodded.

"EDI found some records. Looks like bad things don't happen unless you take more than two grams in an hour," Shepard reported.

Then she poured the powder out on her hand, looked up at me with a smirk, and inhaled sharply before I could protest. Her pupils went large.

_Well, let's hope there aren't side effects we don't know about._

"Holy shit," she breathed, her biotics wrapping around her more vibrantly than usual.

"Well don't hold out," Jack complained, taking the vial from Shepard and sniffing up the chemical herself. She grinned maniacally and held a fist out towards Shepard, the letters D-E-A-T visible across her fingers while she hid the H on her thumb. "Let's go fuck some shit up."

Shepard smirked back and knocked her fist against Jack's once she'd stood from her crouch. The two of them led the way forward, their overpowered biotics making quick work of any Eclipse we ran across in the hallways until finally, after taking care of a gunship and a crazy drugged volus that tried to block our path, our team reached the innermost area of the base.

We killed the ten mercenaries that awaited us inside, and Samara held the Eclipse captain with her reaving abilities until the asari directed us to the shipping manifest on her desk. The Justicar seemed content with what she read there, and then she waited patiently with me while we watched Shepard and Jack attempting to biotically carry as many crates of the Minagen X3 as they could.

"Can you teach that? Reaving?" Shepard asked, strolling up to us finally with five crates trailing behind her.

Samara arched an eyebrow. "To you?" she clarified. "No."

Shepard looked so surprised that the crates wavered in the air behind her. "Because I'm human, or…?"

"Because you lack the focus," Samara stated. "You have power, but not the control reaving requires."

"You have to admit, focus is not one of your strong suits, Shepard," Tali chimed in, perching on the desk next to me.

Shepard stared at Samara for a moment longer, but then she nodded with a frown. "That's why my instructors said my singularities were so weak. I was pulled from adept training almost immediately," she added as the five of us began the trek out of the base and to our shuttle. Luckily no one decided to ask too many questions of our odd group and our obviously stolen crates as we crossed the plaza.

"That is not to say that the skills you possess are not to your credit. You are excellent at what you already have and a very proficient vanguard from what I have seen," Samara said.

"I bet Miranda could do it," I mused as we climbed into the shuttle. Shepard and Jack stacked their crates in around us, careful that nothing would fall and break.

"Why are we still talking about her?" Jack grumbled, disappearing into the cockpit with the shuttle pilot and slamming the sliding door shut behind her.

Shepard raised an eyebrow at the closed door but nodded to me. "She probably could," she agreed. She looked at the asari sitting across from her. "If you would be willing to teach?"

"With the right student," Samara allowed with a smile. "I find I'm looking forward to traveling with companions again, and it has been a long time since I've had the opportunity to pass on my knowledge. However, you should be warned that to reave, one must be able to put aside all other thoughts. To be only in the present and fixate only on the target. It is not something many can do easily."

XXX

Miranda

The quiet hours of Shepard's absence, which I'd designated to be spent in my office working—late reports from my injuries yesterday, inventory checks before leaving a port, various personnel files with new notes from Miss Chambers—were quickly wasted. A heavy cloud had settled to swirl around my mind until every accomplished thought had to be forcibly wrenched out, reluctant and soaked, from its midst. Even sitting in my desk chair, fingers stretched in front of me prepared for a task, did nothing to bring clarity to the fog around me until I found almost an hour gone with nothing attained but my staring at the blank expanse of my wall.

Without the distraction Oriana had offered this morning, my skin was itching at the press of fingers I could still sense at the back of my neck, no matter how many times I reached to brush a palm against my amp to ensure nothing was there. I have even pulled open my left desk drawer and retrieved a hair tie, gathering the dark strands and securing them off of my neck in an attempt to help dispel the sensation, but with no success.

Again, I pressed two fingers on the warm metal of my replaced biotic amp when a shiver rippled down my spine. The amp had been disinfected, of course, by Chakwas and thoroughly inspected it for damage before reinserted. _There is nothing wrong with it_. Yet, I could still feel fingernails edging underneath the sides of the piece, ready to rip it away again. _Just something wrong with me then_.

I snatched my hand away from my neck and slammed it against my desk, the tingling pain a welcome distraction. I finally reached behind and gently wriggled the device out of its port, sighing when it was gone, and set it down on my desk. The small metal square seemed to mock me in its new location, so I shoved it into a drawer before leaning on my elbows, rubbing at my temples.

"_If you allow yourself to become dependent—on a gun, biotics, strength, or even other people—it will hurt when they're taken away," Father said, circling around me. _

"_I hardly need them," I replied with all the confidence of a teenager. "I have intelligence to make up for it. That can't be taken away."_

_Ice blue eyes narrowed but continued to circle. "I wouldn't be so sure," he answered. "But, yes, your brain will allow you to overcome most handicaps." He paused in his pacing and cupped my cheek softly with a smile. "I'm so proud of your progress. You know that?"_

_I leaned into the touch, starved for the affection, and he brushed his thumb along my cheek with a smile. Happiness glowed in my chest, even as I hated myself for wanting it. I hated him. I loved him. Most days I wasn't sure which feeling was which._

"_Does that mean…?"_

"_I've already said no," Father snapped, pulling the hand away. "I'm already allowing you to go to this year's gala. Is nothing I give you good enough?" _

"_I simply wanted to meet people my own age. Not your business associates," I replied, my frown growing at the absence of the, for once, gentle contact._

"_They are not _my _business associates. They're ours," he said, patting my shoulder as his voice softened once more. "This is what you've been training for. You'll carry the Lawson name on. Continue my legacy. Starting with the business."_

_He reached for me, easing out my biotic amp from my neck with surprising care, and I stood taller. He patted at my cheek absently and twirled the device along his fingers before pointing at a square, wooden crate that was the only object today in the mansion's training room. Father lifted the lid to show it filled to the brim with metal weights. _

"_Now that you're done thinking of nonsense, your task for the day is to lift this," he ordered. _

_I glowered at him. "Impossible without my biotics," I argued. _

"_Do it anyway," he ordered and left the room, allowing the door to snap shut behind him. _

_Of course, I marched straight to the crate, examining it with the seriousness of a volus with a banking statement. I concluded the crate must be a trick, that there was some clever solution if only I found it. Yet, the wooden crate filled with fist-sized squares of metal was just as it seemed: heavy. I crouched and tried to pull on it, just for the sake of it, and didn't manage to budge the beast even a centimeter off the ground._

_It took hours for me to admit defeat, dragging my feet to Father's study to inform him I'd failed. The moment the words fell from my lips, his face snapped into something harsh and more recognizable, whatever tenderness that had occurred earlier wrested from my grasp with an ease akin to a wave curling onto the sand, erasing whatever flights of fancy had been written there. _

"_Never did I say you couldn't leave the room to find something to make it work," Father replied cooly. He stood from his desk, clasping his hand down on my shoulder and clenching it painfully while he led me back through the doorway. "So eager to please, you forgot about the brain you spoke of so proudly." His lip curled. _

"_I'll go work on it again," I stated, but the hand on my shoulder held me still until it prompted me in the other direction. _

"_Failure was not one of your options," he answered, the words snapping out like a whip. "Life doesn't give second chances. Go back to your books; we're done for the day."_

"That's why he had me drugged," I murmured, still staring at the amp as I came back to myself.

Father had known exactly how to hurt me, naturally, by closing the exact loopholes he had been the one to teach me to see. He made sure they took my biotics and compounded the hurt by fogging my brain with drugs, making a point of taking the one thing I'd thought he couldn't. And all the while, he'd been waiting to pour salt in the wound with Niket's betrayal. It was almost like yesterday had been another one of his tests, one I certainly would have failed without Thane's timely appearance and Shepard's backup.

It was a shame Father hadn't shown up in person on Illium. I could have constructed a pulley system and hung him instead of that bloody crate. I, at least, would have enjoyed seeing him choke on the irony.

And just maybe if Father had been there in person—or if events had played out ever so slightly different—I would have had the chance to deal with Niket myself. His betrayal ate at me, and I didn't even have the chance to ask him why he'd done it.

He'd been a friend, a confidante, and was, quite frankly, the only person from my old life that I'd remained in contact with, not to mention the only one during that time who had been my age. Even on the days I hated him, it was Niket or nothing, additional friends being the one thing Father had always denied me. Even Niket himself had only been a concession to a tutor who expressed concern about my social development.

And so it began: an awkward boy whose family was likely paid for him to live in the mansion and be my friend. I stole kisses because there was no one else to give me my first kiss and led him to my bed by the same reasoning. He was easily manipulated, not just by my father but by me, and I'd wrapped him so thoroughly around my finger that I'd thought he would never chose my father over me. I suppose I'd been wrong about that.

Then again, Shepard said she'd gotten a message from my omni-tool that I hadn't sent. The obvious explanation was that it had been Niket, that that was what the Eclipse mercenary had meant when she said Niket had tipped Shepard off. But changing his mind at the last second doesn't negate the harm he did in the first place: revealing Oriana's location. I might have killed him myself for that.

I stood from my desk, bashing my thighs against the edge in my haste. Desk work would have to be completed later; it was obvious I needed new direction if I wanted to be at all productive before the day was out. I grabbed the tablet I'd been sketching designs on and brought it with me as I relocated to the lab.

I found the _Normandy_'s salarian scientist hunched over the main lab table, maneuvering a pair of tweezers on a pinned Collector seeker swarm insect with the help of a large, suspended magnifying glass. Mordin was still, movements more tightly controlled than I'd yet seen from him as he worked.

"Dr. Solus," I said to gain his attention. "Do you have a moment?"

"Of course, Operative Lawson," he agreed, following my trend of formality and carefully setting his tools aside. He leveled his gaze at me. "What do you need?"

"Shepard requested that you expand upon these designs for a muscular microfiber weave, correct?" I confirmed, pulling up the file in question on my omni-tool for visuals.

"Yes. Am in process of constructing it," he said then let out a long-suffering sigh. "Wouldn't be necessary if upgrades included in original reconstruction."

I narrowed my eyes at him, frowning at the return to the same argument Mordin refused to let go of. No matter how many times I explained that we wanted to bring Shepard back with only minor modifications, the doctor didn't seem to understand. Cerberus wanted the commander, not a robot with Shepard's brain, otherwise why would I have bothered making her human at all? I could have given her a titanium skeleton and used a 3D printer to print organs out of composites much sturdier than human tissue. Better yet, I could have done away with organs completely.

Then, she wouldn't be human, and Shepard needed to be human, needed to be alive. More importantly, I believed she needed her real body, which was why I painstakingly slaved over every detail, barring the re-infliction of her old scars. I believed she wouldn't have survived waking up in anything else: the shock could have broken her.

Or maybe I give her too little credit. Perhaps she would have embraced having a robotic body. I still highly doubted it, and I was in too poor of a mood to make the same arguments with Mordin for a fifth time.

"I would like to incorporate my own design of the microfibers into the upgrade," I began, ignoring when he frowned. "Minor adjustments." I slid the tablet I'd brought in front of Mordin on the table and flicked the images upwards so they displayed in a three dimensional projection. "Many of the major muscle attachments are also sites of cybernetic concentrations, which, I'm sure you've noticed, are acting irregularly. I've also gotten reports that they're giving off a lot of heat."

"Many based on untested technology. Should design new implants based on new data," Mordin suggested.

The corners of my lips curled at his accurate prediction. "Just so," I agreed with a nod. "But that will take us time. Several weeks optimistically." I pulled up a body model of Shepard and filtered it by her cybernetics and muscle groups. "In the meantime, I propose a stopgap. We include extra 'bundles' of microfibers at the attachment sites so they serve a dual purpose towards insulation of the cybernetics."

"Protect surrounding tissue from heat," Mordin mused out loud in agreement. "Minimal effects on integrity of fibers throughout muscles in original design. Agreed." He brought his fingers to his chin and allowed a small frown. "Not an option for facial cybernetics."

I cropped the projection to just Shepard's head and enlarged it, spinning it to the side. "Which is why we'll build new versions of these first. Jaw implant is of lower importance. Eyes should have high priority. I can't risk her losing healthy tissue and going blind."

"Assuming you tried 'growing' eyes before cybernetics?" Mordin queried, staring hard at the projection.

"Yes," I confirmed, jaw tightening at the slight condescension in his tone even while I appreciated having a peer to work with. I'd forgotten what other scientists could be like. "The nerve regeneration was unsuccessful multiple times, with various methods. They simply wouldn't take. I was forced to replace the nerves with corresponding cybernetics, though the rest is human tissue."

"Have colleague who discovered enhanced nerve regeneration facilitated by…" Mordin trailed off before bustling to his nearby console. "Will retrieve notes. May be applicable to humans."

And with that, it was like I could finally take in a full breath, the cold, recycled air of the ship filling my lungs all at once and blowing full articulation into my thoughts, stripping it of the fog that had surrounded it. Mordin came back to my side, placing the downloaded notes in front of me, and together, we tossed out ideas, a difficult thing to keep up with when dealing with a salarian. We took turns moving the projection of Shepard's eyes back and forth to suit our needs, motioning dramatically at different parts when our discussion dissolved into a full-blown argument.

It was, however, a productive argument, of the kind only scientists could have and not be offended by the other party's adamant refusal to concede to a point. Back and forth we went, until I seized on something he said, and the conversation turned, becoming that of excited discovery.

"Yes, and if we–" I pointed.

"Precisely! Would need different–"

"–materials, of course," I finished for him. "But this is very possible. Her eyesight may not even deteriorate with age, if this works."

Mordin nodded. "Even cybernetics would have needed to be replaced eventually. Hard on human body."

"Not all of them. But on delicate eye tissue, yes," I allowed.

"You should also consider evaluating the commander's shoulder," Thane slid into the conversation, and I only just managed not to flinch in surprise. I blinked at him, glancing between the drell's position at the corner of the table and the still closed door. I hadn't even heard him enter.

"Why?" I asked Thane finally, studying his blank face and passive posture.

Thane stepped easily over until he stood across from Mordin and me, joining like he'd always been there. Thin fingers reached up and spread out to zoom in on the joint in question on the projection.

"Shepard favors her right shoulder. It may be pain or just minor discomfort. A skilled assassin would target it first. Indeed, any observant enemy may notice it and exploit the weakness," Thane explained.

I frowned, irritated by the news, even though it was helpful. Shepard never said anything, and scans had shown no injuries in that area.

"Thank you," I replied, the words forming haltingly through lips unused to forming the phrase. I made a note for that to be addressed next, and Thane gave a slight nod while the silence stretched as I typed.

"The commander's overall reconstruction...impressive," Mordin said, breaching the quiet and staring away from me to the projection.

I narrowed my eyes. "A compliment from you? That, I didn't expect."

"Personally, could have done better," Mordin replied, followed with a small smile when my lips twitched closer to a frown. "But not by much," he conceded.

That was..._hm._ Condescending, yes, but coming from Mordin, who frequently treated topics as if he had the last word on what was or wasn't correct, it was practically a glowing commendation. I had never deluded myself into thinking I needed validation in order to be proud of my work, but it was certainly welcome.

I gave a sharp nod: the work _had_ been a great accomplishment. His admiration was only expected, though I considered him with shrewd eyes. It wouldn't be so awful to get other opinions. Occasionally.

"What would you have changed?" I asked.

The salarian brightened considerably, launching into explanations that he illustrated with gesticulations to the projected model of Shepard. It took only one sentence for me to regret opening the conversation to his criticisms, but I leaned on the table and listened. I nodded when he made a good point and veiled my disagreement with a thinning of my lips when he was obviously wrong. Thane occupied himself to the side with his arms crossed over her chest, though I could have sworn he smiled every time I frowned.

"If you three missed me that much, you could have just called me on the comms. The full-body model is a little excessive," Shepard quipped as she broke into the room, back from the mission already.

My body acted in direct contrast to the levity in her voice, tension drawing along my spine until my shoulders were completely straight and pulled back. I was...tired, exhausted by the events of yesterday and confused about my feelings from this morning. Working with Mordin had offered a reprieve, submerging myself back into familiar research and problem solving, but Shepard's presence just reminded me once again of everything I'd been trying to push aside.

"I didn't realize I'd rebuilt you with such sense of humor. I'll add that to the list of things to fix," I replied, gathering my tablet and a datapad I'd taken notes on. I looked up just enough to catch Shepard's eyebrow raise and frown. "If you'll excuse me, Commander, I still have reports to finish."

"I only need one more minute of your time, Miranda," Shepard said, her tone causing me to look up at her face once more.

Her emerald eyes were soft and their gaze landed not on my face but my hair before trailing along my exposed neck. I resisted the urge to cover my empty amp port with a hand and stood straight, tipping my chin up so I looked at her levelly.

She stepped to the side and motioned to the asari that had been previously hidden by the doorframe. "This is Samara, our new asari Justicar," Shepard said. "Samara, this is Dr. Mordin Solus, Thane Krios, and my second-in-command Operative Miranda Lawson. She's the one I spoke to you about earlier."

I raised an eyebrow. "You were speaking about me?" I inquired, mildly concerned.

"Shepard witnessed my ability to reave. She asked if I might teach you the skill," Samara explained, stepping forward and bending her neck in a small bow of her head.

I blinked at her, turning to Shepard with both brows up. "You realize very few humans have _ever_ mastered reaving. Without the asari's natural capacity to connect to another being's nervous system, it is an incredibly harrowing method to learn," I reminded her. "And you don't want to learn this yourself?"

"Reaving is antithetical to the commander's fighting style. The discipline and focus required—" Samara began to explain.

"—is not something a vanguard would be able to use well in a fight. But control is something you've got in spades. You can do this," Shepard said.

"Well, of course, I imagine I _can_," I replied. The corner of Shepard's mouth twitched up. "But who would I even practice on? I doubt volunteers will line up when they learn of the pain involved."

"You would practice on me," Samara said, earning surprised looks from both myself and Shepard. "In the beginning, I will meld with you so you have a better sense of how to use your biotics to connect to others. And the pain you inflict on me will also be felt by yourself so you learn how to moderate intensity."

There was a beat of silence. "I didn't realize melding was part of it," Shepard said hesitantly.

"It is the best way to learn," Samara explained. "I will not attempt to go beyond what is necessary. Her mind is her own."

"I'll do it," I decided. Shepard looked like she wanted to say something, but I cut it off with, "Would you be ready to start tomorrow? After the morning's training session?"

"Yes," Samara agreed with a nod.

"Then I look forward to it," I replied. I turned to Shepard. "I'll be in my office."

I barely made it out of the door before Shepard caught up with me, stopping me with a hand on my shoulder.

"Wait," she said. "I don't want you to feel like I'm forcing you into this."

"I didn't realize my recent performance had been lacking," I answered, dropping my shoulder so her hand fell off. "You're my commanding officer, and if you feel a new skill is necessary for me to remain relevant to the mission, I hardly need further explanation."

Shepard made an aggravated noise deep in her throat and pressed her lips together, jaw tightening. "Damn it, Miranda, for someone so intelligent, sometimes you are just _impossible_ to deal with, you know that?" she growled. I stayed silent, hands clasped behind my back, as she took in a deep breath, pinching the bridge of her nose. "In retrospect, this was a bad day to spring this on you."

I wasn't sure what she meant by that except that maybe she was trying to consider my feelings in relation to the events of yesterday. However, I was confident my actions had given no indication of how much my kidnapping had shaken me. The mission was more important that something as trivial as my feelings, and surely Shepard recognized that I would never let something like that affect my work.

I certainly wasn't expecting Shepard to start looking at me so strangely, especially once she reached out and pulled one of my hands into her own. Then she hugged me, her arms pulling me flush against her while her hair fell against my shoulder, and for the second time that day, I found myself unsure what to do with my arms.

"You and I both know I don't really do hugs. So if you don't hug me back, this is going to get awkward very quickly," Shepard murmured against my ear, and a shiver raced down my spine.

"What is this for?" I asked, tentatively draping my arms around her.

"Because I can't believe you thought I'd make you learn reaving just to be important to the mission," Shepard said. My breath caught, and she pulled me in tighter. "You have nothing to prove here."

My throat went tight, and I thought I felt her fingers tracing along my neck, but it was so soft I dismissed it as my imagination again. Shepard released me after a few more moments, squeezing my shoulders before dropping her hands.

However, in the few seconds that it took for Shepard to remove herself into her own space, the air around us felt heavier, and pink spots of embarrassment colored Shepard's cheeks. She looked down with a self-conscious grimace and rubbed at the back of her neck.

"Everyone has shore leave this evening. Make sure you take a break, Miranda."

With that, she turned and marched for the elevator without looking back. I shook off my shock and headed for the airlock instead, ignoring the opportunity to go to the local bar like I imagined the rest of the team was doing. More importantly, I was ignoring any lingering feelings as I focused my mind fully on my task.

_Work, only work_, I reminded myself. If I couldn't focus on reports, I could do something else, so I steered myself to the sales floor.

The shops would still be open at this time, and I had a rather long list of things that needed to be purchased before we left: materials for the new cybernetics Mordin and I had planned, a de-humidifier for Thane, tactical cloak for Zaeed, an improved selection of dextro food for Garrus (and Tali), and a new biotic amp for Jack, since she'd complained hers was glitchy—unsurprising given my suspicions that she'd stolen it off of someone she'd killed. I'd even noted down that Tali needed a new omni-tool—something about it not being the same after Haestrom—and the new Logic Arrest model had been released recently. I certainly wasn't above bribery to get the quarian to be cooperative in her new home.

None of them would thank me for it, but it was my job to ensure that everyone had what they needed, a task that was surprisingly easy when the recipients believed I didn't care what they were saying or simply thought I wasn't listening. Besides, I was always careful to deliver my findings when the individual was absent from their room. It wasn't that I believed the squad members would shun free equipment if I openly gave it, but this way they were likely to attribute the requisitions to Shepard, which suited me just fine.

I entrusted my bundles to Crewman Hadley, who had been instructed to wait on the command deck for me, and made sure he knew where everything should be delivered before returning to my office with my normal determination returned in the steady pace of my footsteps and slight swing of my hips as I passed crew members by.

My good mood crashed around my ears the moment my office doors opened. There was a glint of a light reflecting off a familiar metal shape on my desk. I lifted it in one gloved hand: a brand new biotic amp, and a top model at that. A glance in my desk drawer revealed my old amp was gone, and only one person on the ship was bold enough to go through my things.

The slip of paper shoved under the amp only confirmed it, two scrawled letters decorating the otherwise empty page: E.S.

* * *

**So I don't have a whole lot to say here except that it felt like an emotional rollercoaster while writing this chapter, and wow. I do feel like the pacing isn't my best work, and I would actually be really open to suggestions. It's the one thing that bugged me and held this chapter back from being published earlier. **

**Meanwhile, things are starting to ramp up for Miranda and Shepard, so I finally got to sprinkle some cuteness in alongside the angst. What do you all think about Shepard's reaction to waking up in Miranda's bed? Or what about Miranda learning to reave? Garrus is finally going to start dealing with his own stuff soon as well, so get ready. Next up...Collector Ship. *dramatic music***

**Thanks to all of my followers and to everyone that reads and reviews. I appreciate every review I get (there may or may not be excited skipping involved when they show up). Also, special thanks to my beta, AblatedCrayon, who puts up with me ;)**

*******As a side note for the Minagen X3 thing, I forgot that the chemical was illegal when I wrote this. So it's not going to be *that* illegal in this fic. Think of it as a controlled substance instead of, say, something like meth. Shepard taking it with her was meant to be a practical decision.**


	21. (In)Convenient Interruptions

Chapter 21: (In)Convenient Interruptions and Avoided Conversations 

Miranda

"Grunt, this is awful," Shepard complained, glaring at the screen of text projected in front of her face while she laid flat on the medical cot.

Grunt snorted, leaning over to see her screen. "You haven't even gotten to the good part," he declared, eyes crawling back to his own datapad. "You'll be at the fighting soon."

"The good part is over!" Shepard exclaimed dramatically. "They fell in love before the end of chapter two. What's the point of still going to war? They should go home. Live their lives."

"He's the Chief. Of course he's going to keep fighting," Grunt stated with a frown. Shepard grumbled something indistinct under her breath. "Mates have nothing to do with it," Grunt continued to assert.

He and Shepard had been having the same circular argument for the better part of a half hour, not nearly as exhausted from this morning's practice as I'd hoped. They'd unfortunately had the time to renew their energy with breakfast while I'd met with Samara after said practice. I'd expected more in the way of practical training from the asari, but the asari had only given some mental exercises to work on to prepare for the meld. Normally, I might be offended, but there were too many other things to worry about than one asari's opinion of my mental capabilities. For example, the delicate insertion of microfibers into the major muscle groups of Shepard's arms and shoulders.

Today was only the first of many procedures to come, having decided to stagger the operations to avoid having Shepard on bedrest. We didn't anticipate problems in the couple days it would take to reach Aeia, a planet that might hold answers for Jacob about his father, but completely benching the commander for non-critical medical reasons wasn't reasonable, much to Shepard's dismay at the thought of multiple surgeries.

_Not to mention my own_, I thought as I resigned myself to a future filled with these inane conversations. During travel days, squad members with minimal responsibilities like Grunt (and apparently Shepard) had little to do but read books and watch movies as a means to entertain themselves in between squad training sessions. It had never bothered me until I had to listen to it.

"Shepard, I only agreed to leave you conscious during this because you promised to do as I said," I pointed out.

"It's not like I can move my arms; you've got them numbed," Shepard protested.

"You can move your torso, which moves your arms. I suggest you try harder to be still, unless you'd like for me to make a mistake," I said.

Shepard rolled her eyes and smiled, but it was a cheap, brittle expression that left an unsettled feeling lingering in my stomach, which, quite frankly, had worried me from the moment I'd seen her this morning. Dark circles were still present under her eyes—one night of sufficient sleep couldn't do much, after all—and EDI had reported that Shepard had, once again, barely slept the night before after returning to her own cabin. It was to the point where my intervention was necessary, but Chakwas had said Shepard already tried sleeping drugs, once anyway, and refused to take them the next night. The short term solution was out, and longer term solutions were very much limited.

I simply didn't possess an instant cure for stress and nightmares.

"Why isn't Mordin doing this?" Shepard asked. "The microfibers were his project, after all."

I paused and tilted my chin down so I could see her over the surgical magnifying glasses perched on my nose then lifted my instruments away from the microfiber bundles I had been adjusting. Shepard raised an eyebrow as I rolled out my neck and sighed.

"Mordin's original blueprints, yes, but my modifications," I contested with a frown. "Besides, as you so astutely put it, I'm your 'builder person.' Naturally, I am the preferred candidate to operate on you."

The corners of Shepard's lips twisted into what could only be described as a satisfied smirk, and the stretch of it bunched up her cheeks around her eyes in amusement.

"You remember that?"

"You using such a ridiculous phrase? Distinctly," I replied, training my eyes downward again and setting back to work. Shepard's arm twitched under the area I was examining, and I huffed out my displeasure. "_Be still_. Or next time I'm putting you under."

I glanced up just in time to see a shadow crossing Shepard's face, but she nodded. The mood passed quickly, and shortly Shepard turned back to her conversation with Grunt, whose only reason for being in the medbay was to keep Shepard company, though his effectiveness at keeping her distracted was being proven unsatisfactory. Next time, I vowed, I was locking everyone else out.

"Alright, this is done," I announced, finally setting my tools aside to be sterilized and arching out my back from where I'd been hunched over the table. "It's very important that you're careful for the next day at minimum. Two days is preferred. Absolutely nothing strenuous. If you pull these before your body has time to heal around them, you could displace the cybernetics and lose function of your arms."

"Which you could just fix again anyway," Shepard commented, dropping her head dramatically back against the pillow.

"Not quickly." I frowned at her again. "And that is not the point."

"Yes, yes, fine," Shepard conceded and let her head fall to the side to face me. "I will be on my best behavior."

I nodded and began gathering my materials, focused on returning everything to their appropriate place in the medbay. My neck prickled with the awareness of being watched, and I turned to find it wasn't Shepard, who had turned back to reading the proclaimed awful book, but was instead Grunt, whose electric blue eyes were trained sharply on me before moving to Shepard and back.

"Stay here until you can move all of your fingers and Chakwas can do a pain assessment. I have an appointment with Samara to keep," I said, filling the silence before Grunt could. The krogan had been spending more time with Jack lately, and he had a glint in his eye that I'd learned was a precursor to asking me a question I would find uncomfortable. However, usually, those questions came when he'd already trapped me in my own office, but today the medbay was easy enough for me to vacate.

Unfortunately (or fortunately for everyone present except Grunt) the krogan wasn't given the chance to voice his question. My omni-tool interrupted with an urgent message: the Illusive Man wished to speak to both me and Shepard. I bit the inside of my cheek and looked up at her in apprehension.

"No rest for the wicked?" she joked. She sat up with awkwardly limp arms.

I glared at her until she laid back again. "It can wait. I'll send a message that we'll speak in an hour. You aren't moving until the medication is completely gone and you can feel your limbs to avoid injury," I stated.

"You sure? The Illusive Man doesn't seem the type to wait around. Not that I'm opposed to doing everything in my power to piss him off," Shepard replied with a surprised scrunch of her forehead.

"He'll wait for me," I replied, my tone dismissive and hard as I turned my back on her and stepped out of the room.

Less than an hour and a half later, Shepard and I had been informed of our new, dubiously worthwhile mission to board a Collector Ship when the same icy tone dripped from my mentor's lips as he asked me to stay on the communications.

"Miranda, a word before you go," the Illusive Man said. Different words but the same cadence, same steely inflections. I blinked and wondered how I'd never noticed how...similar we sounded.

The thought should have filled me with pride.

The commander glanced at me but nodded before leaving the small circle and disappearing from the projection. Without her by my side, arms crossed and glaring at my employer, I felt somehow different. I squeezed my hands together, hiding them behind my back.

_Me, nervous? In front of the Illusive Man?_ I scoffed at myself. _A ridiculous idea._

Yet not an entirely unfounded one. My newly discovered doubts stung like fresh tattoos across my face, plain as day for any to see. Gaps in my knowledge of Cerberus that I'd dismissed before as necessary secrets had begun to grate against me as deceit. Certainly, the Illusive Man had never given me an assignment that would truly test my morals, even when pragmatism dictated that such operations must exist. He'd always called them 'rogue' cells, not really part of Cerberus, and I'd never thought to (or at least hadn't wanted to) to dig deeper.

It was easier to believe him than to consider how much I must have overlooked for almost two decades.

"You've been quiet," the Illusive Man commented, tapping his cigar against the arm of his chair.

"You receive a report after every mission, same as always," I objected, my voice just as soft as his own.

"Yes, your work is impeccable, of course. I could never doubt that. It's your demeanor that seems changed," he observed.

The slightly detached, but familiar concern filtered through the Illusive Man's hardened countenance, and it was just enough to make my apprehension seem misplaced. The Illusive Man had done a lot for me, and I for him, so why was I facing him like an enemy? I believed in Cerberus, which meant believing in the man who ran it. To lose faith in the Illusive Man was to abandon everything I had worked for, all I had built. My position in Cerberus was the first thing that hadn't been _given _to me. I'd earned it.

Yet, today, I felt like an imposter standing in that past woman's shoes, with her clear goals and undivided loyalties.

I dug my fingernails into their opposite palms and kept my chin up.

"The commander has a _unique_ way of running her ship. I admit, I may still be adjusting to the lack of boundaries," I answered, quickly enough that my hesitation would be barely noticeable.

The Illusive Man smiled, a reassuring gesture, and my own mouth habitually twitched up in return. "We never expected her to be easy to deal with," he replied. He paused to raise his drink for a sip. "I trust you haven't wavered in our mission?"

"You can always trust me," I confirmed.

"If seventeen years of working with you has taught me one thing, it's that I can always depend on you to get the job done, Miranda. I've been very pleased with your success," he replied, seeming satisfied with my answers and nodding to end the discussion. "I look forward to your next report."

I acknowledged him with a nod and waited for the communications display to lower around me before letting my chin fall.

"It's rude to eavesdrop," I tossed over my shoulder.

"You couldn't have seen me," Shepard said. She stepped up behind me, and her light touch on my still clenched hands reminded me to drop them. I turned to look at her, face carefully unreadable.

"Your footsteps never left the room, Shepard," I noted.

"Lack of boundaries, huh?" she asked.

I released a sigh in a rush of breath. "We should assemble the team. The coordinates the Illusive Man stated are close by."

Shepard opened her mouth like to say more then closed it, the crease between her eyes deepening.

"EDI?" Shepard asked finally.

"Calling all ground team members to debriefing. Remaining crew will be mustered to battle stations. Permission to change the course of the _Normandy_ to the coordinates provided?" EDI asked.

"Granted," Shepard replied, strolling up to the head of the oval table to wait for the team to arrive.

"Acknowledged. Changing course."

The first to arrive were, naturally, Jacob and Mordin from the adjoining armory and lab, both with concerned frowns etching lines into their faces, Jacob more so than Mordin. My fellow Cerberus teammate was likely worried about a change in schedule; he'd always worn his emotions out for everyone to see, and now was no exception.

Garrus trailed in next followed closely by almost everyone else who'd managed to fit in the elevator together. Grunt, naturally, appeared a few minutes behind. I didn't see Kasumi, but EDI was under orders to announce if the elusive woman actually didn't show up, so I assumed she was cloaked in the room somewhere. Quite frankly, I worried that without EDI to keep tabs on her, she'd be left behind on some planet with the rest of us none the wiser. Kasumi loved her tactical cloak entirely too much.

"You not read your own memos, Princess?" Jack demanded, stomping into the room. _No, but it's surprising that _you _read them. _ "Today's supposed to be a free day. As in, no-hauling-my-ass-to-a-fucking-meeting free day."

It was fruitless to point out that it was, in fact, Shepard that technically called the meeting, but Jack enjoyed blaming me for everything instead. I clenched my jaw and let it be.

"We got a surprise mission, Jack. Calm down and I might let you shoot some things today," Shepard replied, her hip leaning casually against the table as she managed the conversation.

Jack scowled and crossed her arms but, thankfully, kept her foul mouth shut.

"Alright, we got a tip that a turian patrol managed to disable a Collector Ship. We've redirected to its location in the hopes of finding something useful aboard. No doubt there will be data that could prove valuable to our mission," Shepard reported.

Garrus wheezed out a cough, thumping a fist against his chest. "Commander, I'm as proud of our military as the next turian, but there's no way a single turian patrol managed to take out one of those ships."

"This tip came from Cerberus? It screams 'trap,'" Tali added, planting a hand on her hip.

"I agree, but regardless of Cerberus' morals, they still have every reason to see us succeed. What reason could the Illusive Man have to send us faulty information?" Shepard replied. Her fingers tapped against the table slowly. "Miranda?"

I felt more than saw every head turn in my direction. There was something of a challenge in Shepard's green eyes as she locked gazes with me. I stared right back, irritation rasping at the inside of my chest.

"It wouldn't be the first time the Illusive Man has sent out a team without all the information," I admitted, earning a surprised look from Jacob. "It isn't an unusual practice to withhold information with the intention to make our reactions non-fabricated during the mission, to make the enemy believe we've been fooled by their trap. I've done it myself."

"Except I knew he was lying the moment he said 'turian patrol.' The Illusive Man can't possibly believe I'm this stupid or he wouldn't have bothered to rebuild me, right?" Shepard replied, sarcastically rolling her eyes. I didn't comment. "Either way, I suppose the potential for information is too good to pass up. But when we dock with the ship, I'm not taking the entire team."

"More for me," Grunt agreed, bumping his fists against each other with a nod of his head.

"Pardon my disagreement, Commander, but wouldn't it be more prudent to have more fire power going against such an unknown?" Samara cut in.

"Maybe, but if this is a trap laid by the Collectors, the smartest thing for them to do once we've entered the ship is to flank us and cut off our exit. A team will stay with the shuttle and cover our backs," Shepard explained. _And minimize the risk of losing the entire team if we aren't all huddled together_, I mentally added.

"An excellent plan, Commander. It will work well with you leading us remotely," I said.

Shepard's face contorted into something surprised and twisted with disbelief. "Remotely? Not happening," she snorted.

"Did you forget that you had surgery this morning? We're lucky I had the foresight to stagger the operations or you wouldn't even be out of bed," I asserted. "The risk of you losing function of your arms in the middle of a battle is too high."

"If it were one of us–" Shepard's nostrils flared– "you'd never let us go, Shepard," Tali added, almost begrudgingly backing me up.

"Then I'll take up the rear. But I'm not sending my people on something this dangerous and staying behind," Shepard insisted. "Surgery be damned."

I pressed my lips together and conceded with a rough, "Understood, Commander."

When she turned to me again, her face was softer. "Good. Miranda, you'll be with the second team, ready to assist if we need it," Shepard stated.

My whole body went still as I processed that now she was trying to leave _me _behind, a complete reversal of my earlier intentions. Jack grinned at me from the side, and I stared coldly back at Shepard.

"Grunt and Tali will be staying as well, under Operative Lawson's authority," Shepard continued.

"You're kidding," Tali said flatly. "What if you need something hacked? Technical expertise?"

Shepard shrugged. "Kasumi has handled most of the hacking so far. Not to mention I've got access to an AI through my omni-tool."

Luminescent eyes blinked behind Tali's purple visor. "Way to trivialize all of my contributions to this team, Shepard," the quarian replied.

"You'll be more useful helping Miranda breach security doors if a trap is sprung. If anything, it's a compliment to your skills that you're the only tech expert I'm leaving behind," Shepard flattered as Tali crossed her arms.

"Three people isn't much of a team, Commander," I put in.

Shepard's face lit up with a smirk as she and Garrus exchanged a look. "Only three of us fought the last battle with Saren on the Citadel. I have faith in you, Operative Lawson."

_Faith_. I scowled to myself. _What a fickle thing that was_.

XXX

Garrus

If it weren't for my faith in Shepard, my ass would be planted firmly in the mess hall of the _Normandy_ instead of walking into into the belly of the Collector Ship. Hell, if I hadn't had that spark of wild hope in Shepard back at the very beginning, I'd still be in my comfortable job at C-Sec. Maybe my father would have even convinced me to calm down, stop pushing the rules so hard. I wouldn't have stopped Saren with Shepard or ended up on Omega with my team.

Ten good men might still be alive.

My finger brushed against Sidonis' name etched into my rifle, tapping against it as I thought. I'd received an email from Aria T'Loak offering me information on his whereabouts. In exchange for a favor, of course. But Aria wasn't the most trustworthy of allies, and I already knew Sidonis was last on the Citadel, so her information could be dated anyway. Was I curious enough to take the risk?

_Really just depends on the favor, I suppose_, I answered myself.

That is, until I stood peering about the graveyard of tens of thousands of humans, some of their bodies carelessly discarded in piles that we carefully skirted around as we trudged deeper into the Collector Ship. Then Sidonis' sins seemed further away, less worthy of my attention in comparison. I still brushed my finger over the name again.

"Stay wary, Garrus," Shepard ordered, her voice a hiss over the helmet communicators.

The commander was in the middle, ready to fall back as promised, and the reversal in positions put me on edge. Jack had replaced her on point in our formation, her biotics and fighting style a rough equivalent to Shepard's, but Jack—after many agonizing reminders on Miranda's part—had learned to fight with Miranda's group. The main three—two? Tali had been arguing against her appointment to Miranda's team—members of Team Black were now behind us, and Jack crowded my shoulder terribly. Accustomed to the large krogan battering ram, if I were to guess.

Samara and Thane were also newcomers to our formation, but they flowed in well to positions that were already open. Thane with his rifle dragged to the far back, pushing Zaeed out of his place and into a more natural post at the far side where he could get better range on his grenades but still use his sniper rifle. Samara, in addition, had been trained in the ways of asari commandos, inclined towards small team tactics, making her an extreme asset to our mission. She took up her place in the very center of the group, ready to manipulate the battlefield and provide biotic assistance the moment we entered combat.

"Perhaps I should be leading, Vakarian" Tali opined on the comms, still irritated at being left with the second squad. "Ladies first, as they say."

"They also say experience before beauty, Tali," I countered, and the comms crackled with silence.

Jack knocked her elbow roughly against mine with a snort. "Smooth."

"Focus," Shepard snapped again, and I looked back to see her prowling forward only to halt and force her steps to hold her back, like a captive nathak testing its chain. I shook my head with a start. This mission was too fragile to let my wandering thoughts get the better of me.

"Hold," Shepard ordered, and from the corner of my eye, I saw Mordin stopped by one of the piles of bodies, looking between them and the empty pods they were abducted in. "What is it, Mordin?" she asked.

The salarian held a hand up to his chin. "Illogical to abduct humans just to kill them here. Experiments?"

"It makes sense," Miranda added in over the comms. She, Tali, and Grunt watched our movements through the helmet cameras. "A control group would be discarded at the end of the experiment."

"And the rest of the colonists?" Shepard asked. "We haven't exactly seen a holding area for live humans. Plus it's too quiet. A group as large as all the people they've taken would be making more noise, even in a ship as big as this."

"Unless they kept them in those pods," Miranda commented. "But if that's the case, they still must not be keeping them alive for long. There's no sign of a life support system in the pods."

"That makes it unlikely the colonists from Horizon are still alive here," I concluded, saying what I assumed the rest of them were thinking. "Or they transferred them off the ship to somewhere else."

Shepard nodded grimly. "EDI, how far until that access node you mentioned?"

"It is not much further, Commander," EDI replied.

Shepard waved us onward, and I paced forward cautiously, sweeping the corridor through the scope of the new M-98 Widow I'd found in a weapons locker near some twisted, Collector version of a laboratory that revealed the Collectors were actually the long-dead Prothean species. Shepard seemed to care very little about the revelation but had brightened at the discovery of a M-300 Claymore nestled at the bottom of the same weapons locker. That is, until Miranda strictly prohibited its use, reminding Shepard that her newest implants would rip at the kickback.

Shepard's mood darkened further at the news that we were on the same ship that destroyed the original _Normandy_.

"I still think it would be a good idea to do some damage while we're in here," Tali said. "I've got a nasty little virus that could wreak havoc on their systems for at least a week."

"Need I remind you that we aren't supposed to be here." Miranda's hiss came across the comms as well. "Drawing attention to ourselves before we get the information we need is unwise."

"So we do it after we get what we want," Tali snapped back. "This is why I should have been with the other team."

"I'm sure the Cerberus AI is perfectly capable of planting a simple virus without your help," Miranda replied.

The feed from Miranda and Tali suddenly clicked off, but muffled, angry voices could still be heard echoing over Grunt's feed as he stood nearby. I glanced over at Shepard, but she shrugged.

"They'll work it out," she dismissed, pointing for me to continue.

The hallway opened into a massive chamber, every inch of the walls studded with the pods that had been used on the colonists. My stomach dropped.

"That must be the control panel EDI told us about," Shepard said. She pushed out of the group and took up in front of it, activating her omni-tool.

"Shepard," I breathed. "This many pods...They must be planning to go after Earth."

Because her visor was untinted for the indoor setting, I could see the cold look Shepard shot me over her shoulder before turning her attention back to her omni-tool. Her back was stiff.

"Collectors took tens of thousands of humans from remote colonies with no indication of stopping, Garrus. Where did you think this was going?" she pointed out scathingly.

I let her irritability roll off me, even as I bristled at her tone. Shepard was stressed; we were _all_ stressed, but if the shadows under her eyes were any indicator, she had the worst of it. Shepard needed someone to snap at, so it might as well be me. Shepard's temper was an old friend, even if she used to be better at hiding it.

She stopped what she was doing and came close while shutting off her comm feed. She spoke through her external helmet speaker only, turned as low as it would go. "We're far enough in now, and the prize is dangling in front of us. If they're going to spring a trap, it's going to be now."

Shepard clasped my shoulder as I nodded and readied my gun. At the commander's signal, the team formed up in a circle around the control panel, with Shepard at the center.

"Connecting EDI now," Shepard muttered.

The lights on the display lit up with a flash, and EDI announced, "Data mine in prog–"

A warning tone played, and then the comms were swamped with the crackling of white noise. A few seconds later, I heard a click, and the noise was gone.

"Power surge, but we're back up. Shepard, that was directed at the _Normandy_. I think it's time to go," Joker warned. "EDI can download while you make your way back."

"Roger that, Lieutenant," Shepard acknowledged. "Everyone: move–"

The platform shuddered under our feet, and I looked to Shepard with wide eyes.

"Shit."

The platform surged upwards, knocking me to my knees. The rest of the team fell around me, and we clung to the texturized metal grating until it stopped with a jerk and stabilized mid-air. A green hand appeared before me, and Thane helped me to my feet. I dropped again not a second later as a bullet smashed against my shield.

"Into cover!" Shepard ordered, and all nine of us scrambled behind the short outcrop that held the control panel.

More platforms rose around us carrying the Collectors that had waited to make their appearance. The next minutes passed in a blur of action, our team pinned in a surrounded assault that we scurried to return. The scarce cover only protected one side, so we shuffled into a five person semi-circle, containing the remaining four in the center to rotate out when someone's kinetic shield and barriers (provided by Shepard and Samara) had depleted.

"EDI what the hell are you doing? Get us out of here!" Shepard roared.

"Download complete. I need you to manually reestablish the connection to the platform, Shepard."

Shepard sprang to her feet, slamming her left hand down onto the controls. Within seconds, the platform began rising again, and Shepard slumped down to the ground with a sigh, even as EDI relayed that she'd found the falsified turian signal in the data of the ship. She also confirmed that the Illusive Man would have known it was false, and that this was, indeed, a trap. As if we really needed the confirmation. I patted Jacob's shoulder in relief, the nearest teammate to me and also the one that had taken several bullets against his armor on my behalf.

"Team Black, what's your status?" Shepard called over the comms.

There was a hiss as Grunt's feed activated. "Commander...husks," he huffed out.

"...overwhelmed…" Tali's voice added, going silent again except for the distinct, dull moans of rabid husks. "No, Miranda!"

A high pitched scream sounded in the background, and Shepard bounded from the platform the moment EDI set it back down where we'd started, charging forward and apparently forgetting that she was supposed to lead from the back.

"Double time, people!" Shepard ordered.

"Seconded!" Joker chimed in from the _Normandy_'s cockpit. "The Collector ship is powering up. We need to get out of here and fast!"

With more room to move and dodge, the nine of us slaughtered the lines of Collectors that attempted to stop us, weaving in and around each other just like we'd reinforced in practice. Even another Praetorian like the one we'd encountered on Horizon wasn't enough to slow us down, as myself, Jacob, Jack, and Zaeed all pulled out the heavy weapons we'd equipped as a precaution and sent the bastard down in a hail of rockets.

However, my bravado shattered when a herd of scions arrived and scattered our formation in a single wave of three well-placed shockwaves. I took a hit straight to the chest and sailed across the room, crunching against the wall before dropping straight onto my knees. My vision flickered in bright pain.

"Commander!" Samara's alto voice cut through the popping of bullets, and I jerked my chin up to see a scion dangling Shepard by an arm, her body hanging awkwardly limp from it. Shepard balled a warp in her free, left hand and slammed it forward into the creature's armor, and though it staggered, it was barely phased. I couldn't get a clear shot without potentially hitting Shepard, and the rest of the team was occupied with the two other scions.

Crackling yellow energy lit up around the scion holding Shepard until it shone out of the its eyes.

"We are Harbinger," the scion taunted in a deep, mechanical tone, and I froze. _Reaper_. "You cannot escape your destiny, Shepard. Why do you resist?"

"Because fuck you, that's why," Shepard retorted, struggling against its grip. The scion's fist tightened, and Shepard gasped.

"Pain is an illusion. Join us, and we could show you."

"The shotgun, Shepard!" Miranda yelled weakly over the comms. "It should be powerful enough to go through."

Shepard's free arm fumbled for the Claymore she'd strapped to her back earlier, gritting out, "Make up your mind, why don't you!?"

Shepard whipped the heavy gun upwards and shoved the nozzle into the head protruding from the scion's right shoulder. She squeezed the trigger, and the blast tore through the scion's head and ripped open a hole straight through the sac on its back. The scion dropped her as it thudded to the ground, Shepard landing on her back next to it with a yelp of pain.

Shepard stared at her limp arms in horror as I raced over to her, grabbing under her armpits and dragging her into cover while the other two scions were still being distracted by the rest of the team. I leaned over the short wall to see Kasumi moving with a slight limp, but Jacob stepped forward to defend her weakened side until the two of them made it behind a pillar. The five others looked otherwise uninjured, if a bit worn from the fighting.

"I can't move either of my arms," Shepard groaned. She stayed slumped where I put her, but her breathing sounded labored and much too fast. "Ouch."

"Team Black, report your status," I said over the comms, darting out to grab the shotgun Shepard dropped before huddling back in safety with Shepard.

"We're fine," Miranda announced. "Shepard?"

"Wallowing in a deep pit of regret," Shepard replied. "But still alive. Make your way towards us; it's getting heavy over here."

The unmistakable thump of biotics sounded from across the room, followed by Grunt's uninhibited chuckling as three husks went flying over our heads.

"Already here," Miranda replied.

Grunt went charging straight in, bumping a quick fist with Jack before they started forward together in a renewed assault. Tali was waved over by Mordin, who began motioning excitedly to his omni-tool, and Miranda slid in with me and Shepard. I noticed a worrying amount of red blood painted down in drips along the right upper chest and shoulder of her armor, but if she was hurt, she didn't show it.

"Are you okay?" Shepard asked, eyes stopping at the same place mine had: the blood on her armor.

Miranda only nodded while casting a critical eye at Shepard's arms. "Naturally," she grumbled.

"You said to use the shotgun!" Shepard protested.

"You also said you were going to lead from the back," Miranda countered. "And instead, let a scion almost rip your arm completely off."

"I think we've got bigger problems at the moment," I interrupted, gesturing to the two scions still pounding out shockwaves whenever one of our team went too far out of cover.

"Shepard, we have an idea," Tali interrupted over the comms. "Mordin uploaded a copy of his neural shock program to my omni-tool. He thinks a direct neural shock to the sac on their backs will kill them, like stopping a heart, if one of us can get close enough."

"Samara, can you hold a strong stasis on one of them?" Shepard asked.

"Yes," the asari answered with confidence, pushing herself up and readying her hands.

"Take the right," Shepard ordered. "Miranda, put a stasis on the left one, and Tali and Mordin you take them out as fast as you can. If it doesn't work, they'll put another stasis so you two can get back to cover. Go!"

Samara reacted instantly, blue energy flowing from both hands, and Miranda did the same. Tali and Mordin vaulted out of cover together before splitting in different directions to approach their two quarries. Mordin reached his scion first and placed his omni-tool against the sac just as Samara dropped the stasis so the shock could get through. Red light filled the room with a flash, and the scion tumbled down. Tali repeated the feat with the last scion, and as it hit the ground, all twelve of us stood in relief.

Grunt looked at Shepard's arms with a shake of his head as the team gathered together. "'First lesson outside of the tank: when dealing with a biotic, always pin their arms,'" Grunt said, voicing the strange phrase like it was something he'd memorized.

"He's right, Shepard," Miranda seconded. She was turned away and didn't see the happy smile that lit up Grunt's face, but I did. Her voice lowered, like she was trying to keep her next words from the team. "You're incredibly vulnerable now. No arms to activate most of your biotic attacks and no weapon."

"Then it's a good thing we're almost off this ship," Shepard replied, standing with a little help from Miranda. "Let's move; we're almost out of time."

We ran, all twelve of us, our armored boots beating like discordant drums against the strange material of the Collector ship floor. There was a last wave of husks on the final hallway, but the five remaining biotics swept them easily out of our way. We piled into the shuttle, pleased smiles slipping onto several faces, and the shuttle pilot shot us towards the _Normandy _and safety.

Joker activated the mass effect core and shot the ship away the moment the cargo bay doors closed and the shuttle was landed. There was a collective sigh of relief.

"Good work today team," Shepard said, waiting for the shuttle door to slide open and hoping down. "Everyone one of you is to report to the medbay for a check-up. No exceptions. Then take the rest of the…" her voice sputtered out into a hiss when Miranda pulled her helmet off. "...night off. Dismissed."

"What happened?" she demanded, looking at the blood coating Miranda's skin from her ear all the way down to the top of her armor. It pooled around a large bite mark just below her jaw, the vibrant red shining dull through a hardened application of medi-gel.

"She was protecting me," Tali admitted, arriving at my right shoulder and brushing against it briefly with her own. I let myself drift closer to her, glad the quarian was uninjured after what we'd heard on the comms.

"The husks are getting smarter," Miranda stated. "One managed to pull my helmet off while I was distracted with another."

I remembered the scream from earlier, and I shuddered.

"You should hurry to Chakwas," Tali said, her hands wringing in front of her.

Miranda nodded and looked to Shepard to follow her up with a pointed glare to Shepard's dangling arms. Miranda paused with a glance back over her shoulder. "Don't worry; I heal fast," she strangely assured Tali before turning and continuing her march off. I heard her launch into chastising Shepard before they'd even made it a few steps.

"I guess you two worked things out, huh?" I asked Tali.

"Can it, Vakarian," Tali snapped, but then her voice softened. "I can see how she won you all over, that bosh'tet. She really saved me today." She paused. "For a second, I was scared she was dead. Then she got right back up and offered me a suit patch."

Tali shook her head.

"She really does heal fast," I said, fumbling for the right response.

Tali stared at me, luminescent eyes blinking slowly behind her visor. "I should have been paying better attention. But I was distracted. I received some...bad news this morning."

"I, uh, had something similar today too. Did you want to talk…?" I offered, cringing as I awkwardly trailed off.

"Not today," she declined. "I would take a drink though."

I smiled. "I've got just the thing."

XXX

Miranda

The bite to my neck had been cleaned and sealed with more precious medi-gel by Chakwas after more traditional stitches were decided to be a poor substitute. The wound was too close to important arteries in my neck. However, after several hours, it was already starting to close up on its own, though the area itched enough to be irritating.

I covered the wound with my hand, hoping the coolness of my palms would seep through the medi-gel and relieve the discomfort, but all it did was remind me of lying on the ground, dizzy and nauseous, while Tali scurried for the medi-gel, panicked and asking me questions rapidly. And when I'd felt the mission was at its worst, I'd found my helmet and put it on once more only to see Shepard in the grip of a scion.

I'd thought, just for a moment, that that was going to be it: that was how Shepard would die for the second time, and I was too far away to stop it. All my anger at her stupidity, all my frustration, was all muffled by the one blinding, terrifying thought: that Shepard was going to be gone.

The months of learning to work together, the agonizing patience I'd retrieved every time Shepard had growled out an angry comment towards me, and the very fragile, fleeting _something_ that was in her eyes now when she looked at me, all of those would have simply become memories, pulled out when I'd long for what could have been if she'd lived. Not just because of the impending Reaper threat, but because I now believed Shepard as a person would be a loss. I would miss her. The idea was enough to petrify me into place, even now when I knew Shepard was safely upstairs.

It was a good thing I didn't really need to move. I'd wandered down to the cargo bay and stood in the cleared area we used for the fighting simulations, and the program displayed one background that we had never used—or rather, I didn't think Shepard knew it existed, tucked amongst the thousands of other locations on offer—the projection of Lazarus Station.

White walls flickered up around me until I was standing in the operation theater, its pristine interior unmarred by bodies and bullet holes unlike the last time I'd seen it. My hand hovered above the table, remembering how it felt under my fingertips, back when bringing a dead person back to life seemed like the biggest obstacle in the universe.

"I had to ask EDI just to find you. What are you doing down here?" Jacob interrupted, entering the boundaries of the simulation and staring around the holographic room.

"You were looking for me?" I asked unnecessarily without turning.

Jacob came up on my right shoulder. "Yes, I had...a favor to ask of you."

"That sounds ominous," I replied, stepping away from the operating table and flicking my eyes towards him.

Jacob smiled easily, shaking his head. "Don't worry. It's nothing you can't handle. Shepard won't be fit for duty by the time we reach Aeia. But since it should just be a simple recon mission, she said we could still make the stop, and I would just pick my own team."

I nodded. Only the cybernetics in one arm had been salvageable, having been simply yanked out of place, but in her right arm, they'd been semi-crushed by the microfibers that had detached, the manner in which they wrapped around the cybernetic bundle strangling the sensitive technology when the scion had swung her about. We needed two days for a replacement to get to a port where we could stop to retrieve it.

"I was included in the decision. What of it?" I asked.

"I want you there," Jacob stated simply. "All those stories I told you about my father...It wouldn't feel the same without you there to hear the ending. Or I what I hope will be an ending, anyway."

"Of course I'll come," I agreed, folding my hands behind my back. I felt Jacob's eyes still on me; no doubt he wanted more—a sign of gratitude, perhaps—but I didn't know what else to tell him. I would be there for him, and I would be just as uncomfortable sharing in his pain as I was when he initially opened up about his wayward parent. Yet, I would handle it. Because he asked, and because in some ways, abandoning him after all our history together would feel like breaking a promise.

Then again, my promises were meaning less and less these days.

Jacob's hand settled warm on my shoulder. "Would you like to talk about it?"

"Talk about what?" I replied.

"Miranda," he said, exasperation coloring his tone so sharply that I turned to look at him. "We've known each other for years, and you're not nearly as mysterious as you like to think you are." He flashed a crooked smile as his eyes ran around the holographic room again. "You said you did your best thinking in here."

That was the thing about Jacob: at times he was frighteningly obtuse and at others, he would manage to cut right to the heart of my problem with a few words. It frustrated me just as much now as it had back when we'd been in a romantic relationship.

"The problems back then were easier to solve," I replied, steadfastly looking away.

Jacob gave a disbelieving chuckle and reached for my hand. "Only you would call the Lazarus Project easy."

I stared at our two hands together without answering as he ran a thumb over my knuckles. It wasn't unpleasant, but I usually avoided his public displays of affection. Now, especially so. I waited a few seconds, to not offend him, before retrieving my hand from his grasp.

"You're conflicted," he stated, and I raised an eyebrow at him until he clarified, "You outright admitted that the Illusive Man was lying to Shepard this morning. I've never seen you do that before. Non-denial denial, maybe; you always were good with your words. But taking a side that wasn't the Illusive Man's? Never."

"You must be so pleased," I snapped. "You never did trust him."

Jacob had the audacity to roll his eyes at me, and I took a step back, crossing my arms.

"Everyone gets their faith shaken sometimes, Miranda. You're no different," Jacob said. That word again: _faith_. None of this was supposed to be about faith. Cerberus was supposed to be working to a higher purpose: the advancement of humanity. It was only _logical_ to align myself with an organization that shared my goals. So talking about shaken feelings that shouldn't have existed in the first place was certainly not going to make me feel better.

I began to wonder why I was even entertaining this conversation.

"Honestly?" Jacob continued. "For the longest time, I thought the Illusive Man confided everything in you. That you knew all about the more nefarious operations but were good at keeping to the company line."

I set my jaw. "You must have thought me a horrible person," I replied. Jacob's hand went to my shoulder again. "And yet you let me convince you to join Cerberus anyway. I don't understand."

"No, you convinced me that some parts of Cerberus could be good or, at least, some of Cerberus' people. And at least I could actually do something, unlike with the Alliance," Jacob stated, looking at me squarely. He hesitated, chewing just barely on his lip. "That doesn't mean I didn't like the idea of Cerberus. It could be a good one...in different hands."

Both my eyebrows shot up, uncertain whether the soldier was implying what I thought he was (or perhaps just unwilling to admit that I knew exactly what he was thinking). Then I heard the signature ding of the elevator, and I simultaneously ended the simulation program and stepped away so that Jacob's hand fell away.

"Miss Lawson?" A head of distinctive ginger hair bobbed just above the top of a pallet of stacked crates, followed quickly by Kelly Chambers herself. She stopped at the sight of us. "Oh, EDI didn't say Operative Taylor was with you."

"I'm popular today," I mused with a disgruntled narrowing of my eyes. "What can I do for you, Miss Chambers?"

"There's a–" Her eyes went to Jacob– "_sensitive_ matter I wish to discuss with you," Kelly stated.

"I was just leaving," Jacob offered, stopping just at my shoulder and leaning close to whisper in my ear, "For the record, I never thought you were a horrible person."

I watched him walk all the way to the elevator, my shoulders still stiff with surprise, then turned back to the yeoman.

"You were saying?" I asked once he was gone.

"It's about Shepard." My back straightened. "I believe I have a suitable solution to her sleeping problem," Kelly began. "However, the commander is refusing to even consider the idea."

It was interesting that Kelly felt confident enough in her idea to apparently go around Shepard's refusal to me. She also seemed to have forgotten that Shepard ranked above me on this ship.

"And this idea is…?" I trailed off, waiting.

Kelly bit her lip. "Well, I was doing my usual psych evaluation for the commander, and I decided to incorporate the results of the sleep study you've asked EDI to conduct. She's even used previous recordings to analyze Shepard's sleep from before you ordered the study. The data showed something interesting," Kelly explained. I knew I was already sneering at the woman, but I couldn't seem to get my face to stop, not when Kelly was so obviously walking into territory that I didn't want her anywhere near. "The two times Shepard has been asleep in your presence, she's slept the entire night through."

Which, naturally, I already knew. "Your point. Do get to it," I snapped.

"You should sleep with Commander Shepard," Kelly answered.

I stared at her. "Now's not the moment for joking, Miss Chambers," I said scathingly. "If you don't have a serious solution for this problem, I'd suggest you don't waste my time."

"I'm not joking," Kelly replied, calmer than I expected from her. "Shepard's nightmares are a result of extreme emotional distress, distress which she refuses to fully speak to me about. She needs a counselor or another professional to learn to cope with these issues, but her sleep study clearly shows that we don't have that kind of time, even if she were willing to talk about it. In the meantime, a more immediate solution..."

"And how exactly do you think my physical presence in her bed solves her emotional problems?" I asked.

Kelly's lips thinned. "It's unorthodox; I understand. Shepard was...reluctant to answer why she thought she slept better with you there. But her subconscious mind obviously draws comfort from not sleeping alone, and the results don't lie."

"Except if Shepard refused this option, then the matter is already settled," I replied slowly, frowning at her.

"But she only said no because she felt it would be sexual harassment to pressure you into this kind of arrangement," Kelly explained.

"And you obviously disagree," I commented wryly, watching her closely as her jaw set with determination.

"Forgive me, but Shepard wrongfully took the choice away from you. There is nothing wrong with the situation if you agree to it," Kelly insisted.

_Nothing wrong? _I remembered rumpled hair and sleepy eyes; I still shivered at the memory of Shepard's body pressed into mine and the way the tip of her nose burrowed into my neck. I wanted that back, wanted it so badly that agreeing to this offer should have been an easy decision.

Except none of it was real. Shepard didn't care for me; she no doubt rekindled things with Liara back on Illium. The thought of spending every night and every morning with that kind of _temptation_, that I might lose my control and be rejected...

"I will consider what you've said," I choked out, swallowing hard.

Kelly nodded but then cocked her head to the side. "I'm sorry for going behind her back to do this. And you _can _say no. I just didn't think the option should be ignored, not when there's a possibility for it to help."

To help Shepard, of course. Not that I blamed her. Helping Shepard is what we were all here for.

Kelly joined me in the elevator, and we rode to the third deck together in silence, separating as she continued on to the second deck. I stepped out and walked straight to the coffee maker out of habit, retrieving a cup from the overhead cabinet. My favorite one was hidden, shuffled purposefully to the back, and was the only one available without a Cerberus logo on its side. It was the smallest oversight, a flaw in the cup's manufacturing, but it made it unique amongst the others.

It was also the same cup Shepard used to bring me coffee. Not a coincidence, surely.

Everything had begun to revolve around Shepard—my responsibility, my creation, my...friend. If she wasn't sleeping, the solution must come from me, preferably without involving myself in her bed.

This was no different than the dozens of setbacks I'd encountered before while building her, no different than using cybernetics when nerve implantation wouldn't take. Yes, the cybernetics would need to be replaced eventually—today, certainly, there were unfortunate side effects of their use—but they did allow for performance, which was what we needed.

I set my cup down with a jolt. Shepard willingly participating in counseling, I realized, was like attempting to use healthy, lab-grown nerve tissue: it was the best, long-term solution. However, when a long-term solution doesn't work, a suitable alternative is needed—just like the cybernetics. Personal feelings aside, I was the cybernetics in this new setback. The issue would be to get Shepard to understand that.

I would need to use a different analogy.

I poured my coffee finally and threw a few of Shepard's favorite pastries into the toaster before gathering it all onto a tray and stepping into the elevator again. The machine arrived at the top deck, the doors sliding to darkness only broken by the dim light of the Commander's door control. I pressed my fingers against it, and the metal plates slid apart with a whirr.

I looked around in confusion, not seeing Shepard anywhere until the silence was broken with a low curse.

"What are you doing up here?" Shepard demanded, attempting to scramble up from where she'd been sprawled on the floor but only managing to partially prop herself up against the foot of the fish tank.

Her righteous anger was further tarnished by the fact that her nonfunctioning arm was pinned to her side by a crooked sports bra, her upper arm only partially through the opening. Which meant she was also half-naked, and it was understandably distracting. And adorable, considering her predicament. Not that I was in any way entertaining such observations because I was here in a strictly professional capacity.

I bit the inside of my cheek and set the tray I carried down on her desk. "Need a hand?"

Shepard stared at me for a moment longer, then down to her limp arm. "Good to know you have a sense of humor," she deadpanned.

"I have my moments," I demurred shortly. "The offer was serious, however."

When she nodded, emerald eyes following my movements warily, I stepped forward and began to pull the stretchy material of the sports bra away from her body until the two of us could maneuver her arm through the proper opening. I leaned in to smooth out the material in the back before extracting my hands, the tips of my fingers tingling even with my gloves.

Shepard positioned her arm in her lap as I retrieved her shirt. "You know you don't have to do shit like this. This isn't a normal mission, but that doesn't mean this is in your job description."

"My orders are to ensure that you succeed," I said levelly. I kneeled down again to help Shepard ease the thin t-shirt over her arms and then her head. "The 'at any cost' was implied."

Shepard smiled, just a brief quirk of her lips at the statement while she straightened the shirt along her torso. "Yes, but I imagine you thought that only applied to our veritable suicide mission, not caretaking."

I hummed noncommittally, wrinkling my nose at the memory of various bodily fluids I'd dealt with over two years of operating on her. Not to mention the sponge baths and awkward teeth brushing. Cerberus had hired assistants to do those sorts of things, but some days her condition had felt too fragile to trust anyone else in the room. Helping Shepard get dressed didn't even rank against some of the more uncomfortable things I'd done for her.

I took too long to respond, caught up in my thoughts, until I looked down and realized I was still crouched over her, staring. I could see the shiver that rippled across her skin, the chill in the air leaving the tiny hairs standing up along her arms as her green eyes sparkled with the low glow of the aquarium light.

If I were a foolish woman, it might have been the perfect moment to kiss her. I longed to trace my fingers along her collarbone, then tangle them into her hair, and I wondered when, when these feelings had gotten so completely out of hand. But the way Shepard looked at me sometimes—the way she was looking at me just now—made me think that maybe she felt something too, that she might let me. Shepard caught her bottom lip with her teeth, and for a few seconds, I honestly considered.

But I was not a foolish woman. I was not going to pursue a woman who wasn't available, and I definitely wasn't going to jeopardize our mission because I couldn't control my feelings. I pushed straight to my feet, moving to retrieve the pastries I'd set aside moments ago.

"Here," I said, holding them towards her. "I thought you might need it after today."

Shepard plucked one of the pastries from the plate and held it up to the light. Her eyes flickered over to me, face unreadable.

"You do realize these are burned. Like really burned," Shepard stated. She brought the pastry to her face and sniffed experimentally.

"Cooking isn't one of my strong suits," I replied.

"It's not even cooking. The toaster literally does all the work for you. How did you even…"

"You don't have to eat it," I interrupted.

I held out a hand for her to give it back, but Shepard sunk a defiant bite into the pastry.

"No take-backs on gifts," came her muffled declaration around a mouthful. She grinned cheekily after swallowing the bite and added, "So what did you come up here for Miranda? I'm sure EDI didn't alert you just because I couldn't get a shirt on."

"I did attempt to contact you, Operative Lawson," EDI announced. "However, the Commander gave me explicit orders not to."

Shepard scowled at the image of EDI that popped up next to the fish tank. "That's fine, EDI," I replied. "And I came up here at Miss Chambers' request, actually."

Shepard stiffened, the muscles of her shoulders going visibly taut. "I ordered her not to go to you with that," Shepard growled. "_Ordered_ her."

"Insubordination can be dealt with. It does not, however, make her conclusions less valid."

"Miranda, she suggested you sleep up here. In my bed. With me," Shepard sputtered. "I'm not going to ask you to do that. I'm in a position of power over you, and that makes it wildly inappropriate."

"It's necessary," I challenged.

Shepard's eyebrows pulled down sharply as her mouth scrunched up. "I'd never make you do something you're uncomfortable with. Not something like this."

"And yet, I had every opportunity to ignore the suggestion," I replied.

Shepard turned away and stopped at her desk, running a finger along the wing of a partially smashed ship model. With a start, I realized it was the _Normandy SR-1_, picked up as a gift from Garrus during one of our stops.

"If it's my presence you find offensive, an alternative can be arranged," I offered, my stomach sinking when she was silent, and I kept the distance between us by sinking onto the edge of the bed instead of approaching the desk. "Perhaps it's just a reaction to having a physical presence next to you. In that case, I'm sure Tali or even Garrus would be willing to assist. You trust them."

"No," Shepard objected sharply. "It has to be you. Wait, I mean…" She made a noise of disgust in her throat. "The entire situation is ridiculous. I'm not a child in need of a nightlight. I shouldn't _need_ someone else just to stay asleep."

I understood the sentiment: that voice that said the only person you could depend on was yourself. It was the same mentality that the Illusive Man had chastised me for more times than I could count. _Humanity has always been stronger together_, he would say. However, I doubted Shepard would appreciate advice originating from the Illusive Man.

I crossed my legs and folded my hands on my knees. "Do you have a better suggestion?"

She was silent, steadfastly facing the wall instead of me, until the wing of the ship model cracked even further under her fingers. Then she turned, biting her lip. "Is it possible to erase memories?"

"Erase…?" I trailed off, shocked at idea.

Yes. The answer was yes. More importantly, it was possible for _me_ to erase her memories right now on this ship should Shepard truly wish it. But it would also be going against everything I'd worked for in her reconstruction: Shepard without her memories wasn't Commander Shepard.

"_No more secrets...I want to trust you, Lawson," _Shepard's words came trickling back to me, extinguishing the lie on my tongue.

"Specific memories, mind you. I'd like to keep most of them," Shepard continued, and my held breath rushed out in a sigh before I swallowed hard in relief. "I know you could figure something out if you wanted to, Miranda."

"In theory...yes. The odds of success, however, would be low against the very high risk of destroying all of your memories by accident. The asari have been successful in using their melding abilities to pinpoint memories, but as far as I know, it's not widely done," I answered. I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat, but it didn't help the swirling discomfort still present in my stomach. I didn't want to destroy Shepard.

The bed dipped down as Shepard joined me on its edge, near enough that it sent me sliding closer to her.

"Damn it," Shepard muttered. Her fingers played in the fabric of her pants. "Everything I've done, but I can't will away some stupid nightmares? I feel like I'm moving through a fog; I'm so tired. But this isn't something I know how to fight."

My gloved fingers covered hers before I fully thought through the action. "You fight it with help," I answered. "Besides, this doesn't have to be anything more than what it is: a work arrangement."

Shepard furrowed her eyebrows. "But it's every night, Miranda. You might as well move up here."

She looked uncomfortable at the idea, fingers twitching under mine.

"I'll only be up here to sleep," I corrected. "We both require our space, and if it's all the same to you, Commander, I'd prefer the crew not know. EDI can help me slip from my room to the elevator unseen."

"Boundaries, right?" Shepard asked, referring to the earlier debriefing.

"Boundaries," I agreed.

Shepard laced our fingers together and squeezed, offering a wan smile. "Then, I guess I don't have any other objections. Or options, really," she said. "But thank you for doing this."

"Like I said, I'm here to make sure you succeed, Shepard," I replied, pulling my hand away reluctantly and standing up.

I could have made my way down to my room on the lower deck to get dressed and ready for bed, then waited for EDI to tell me when the mess was empty so I could get to the elevator. But with how empty my own closet was, surely Shepard had something of mine in her own.

I found all of the clothing Shepard had 'borrowed' from me neatly hung and organized on the left side of her closet. I rolled my eyes and grabbed a shirt and my favorite sweatpants that had gone missing last week, ignoring the crooked smirk that was drawn across Shepard's face while she watched.

"Why _do_ you take my things?" I found myself asking, holding the clothing against my chest as I turned.

Shepard looked surprised but then shrugged with a frown. "Force of habit, I suppose."

"Habit? I find it hard to believe the Alliance would allow such a thing in one of their officers," I replied, and Shepard snorted, flopping down onto the bed.

"It's called privilege," Shepard answered.

"What?" I asked.

"Privilege," Shepard repeated slowly, as if I hadn't heard her, and I narrowed my eyes. "My father was a war hero, my mother is a respected captain, and she is also a personal friend of Admiral Hackett and several nasty politicians. She may not have cared about _me_ very much, but she did care about her reputation. She pulled every string in the book to make sure none of my _nasty habits_ ever reached the light of day."

"Oh," I said, reading between the lines. "You did it to get back at her."

Shepard hummed noncommittally but otherwise was silent.

"I do know a thing or two about rough parental relationships," I continued, and Shepard nodded with a grimace. "Why only me?"

Shepard laughed, teeth flashing until she bit her lip. "You were the most fun?" she tried. "And really the only one I could afford to piss off. It's not like you were going to _leave_–" the way her voice broke slightly on the word made something clench hard in my chest– "because, at the beginning, that would have been giving me exactly what I wanted."

"And we wouldn't want that, would we?" I replied. I didn't entirely understand, especially why she had only targeted me. After all, if she wanted someone who wouldn't leave, she had Garrus or Tali on the ship as well. But then Shepard laughed again, and my own mouth curved up in response, and suddenly, it didn't matter.

I held up the clothes in my hands to indicate I was going to change and slipped into the bathroom. When I emerged, Shepard was already on the right side of the bed, the covers tucked in around her. I walked to the left side, steps more confident than I felt, and my fingers fumbled slightly as I pulled the blankets back.

We glanced at each other once I was settled, silence stretching awkwardly between us, but eventually, I rolled to my side and closed my eyes, my nose filled with the sweet smell that clung to the borrowed pillow. Shepard clicked off the light and huddled down into the covers next to me, and I smiled at the barest moan of happiness she released as her head hit the pillow.

I drifted off faster than I imagined I would, only slogging my way back to consciousness when I felt fingers brushing the hair away from my face. Shepard's fingers touched lightly against the wound on my neck before the backs of them swept against my cheek in a caress before retreating to her sigh.

I let the moment pass, dismissing any thoughts of letting her know I was awake, but I did smile when she shifted ever so slightly to my side of the bed, a strange, fluttering happiness following me all the way into my dreams.

* * *

**Um, sorry? This took a ridiculously long time. I started a new job and had trouble managing my time. So first off, I really enjoyed writing Miranda and TIM's relationship. Yes, he's fucking awful, no one is disputing that. However, she's worked with him for most of her adult life at this point; there's no way she's not going to have second thoughts about all the doubts creeping up on her now. I would love to hear what all of you are thinking about that part. **

**Also, I recognize that a lot of people don't like Jacob Taylor. I can just hear the screaming already that I gave him a long conversation. But this is a dude that Miranda fucking Lawson thought was worth her time to date; so I just don't believe the bland awful character that Bioware wrote for him. And that weird flirting that they made Femshep do around him, even when you weren't romantically involved. *shudder* So I'm trying to give Miranda's past history with him its full weight, is what I'm saying. **

**I spent a reallllly long time debating on whether Miranda _helping_ Shepard with her sleeping issues was a good idea. So I hope I crafted the reasoning in a way that's believable. (Also, the two ladies trapped in a bed together night after night? 10/10 would recommend).**

**Also, how interested would everyone be in adding Tali/Garrus to this fic?**

**I'd love to hear what everyone thinks! There's still several chapters to come, but I think we're definitely over the halfway mark now (not all missions will be fully written out, kind of like Kasumi's). Thanks for everyone who fav's follows, or reviews! Those notifications make all the effort worthwhile, so THANK YOU.**


	22. At Any Cost

Ch. 22: At Any Cost

Garrus

_Today's the day_. I winced as I shoved the last piece of my newly cleaned rifle into place with a snap that reverberated through the battery before slinging the gun onto my back. It felt heavier than it ever had, settling like a solid lead weight between my shoulder blades. I sighed and pushed through the battery door towards the mess hall.

Breakfast was in full swing by the time I arrived, and I grabbed a tray and made room for myself at the table next to Tali, who was right in the middle of a retelling of a story I _intimately _recognized.

"No," I gasped, interrupting her with a frown.

"What's the matter, Vakarian? I thought you _loved _this story," Tali replied.

"Don't you dare…" I warned, but my threat sounded flat in the face of Tali innocently cocking her head. I rolled my eyes. I knew what she was doing anyway: trying to distract me. She was worried that I would regret killing Sidonis, but she'd also refused to come on the mission. Supposedly I 'needed to do this alone.' Whatever that was supposed to mean.

"So there he is, sprawled out on the ground after being headbutted by a krogan. He comes to and looks like he's going to cry, and we all thought he was injured. Liara rushed over with a first aid kit, and Shepard was holding his hand...It was all very touching," Tali continued. She shot one last glance at me, and I glared at her.

"I'll have you know that turians do not cry," I objected. "And there was no hand holding. You change the story with every retelling!"

"But it turned out that he was perfectly fine," Tali said, ignoring me. "Garrus was upset over a crack in his visor."

"That visor was custom designed by me!" I protested. "Do you know how long it took to replace it?"

"Yes," Tali deadpanned. "Because that's all you talked about for weeks afterwards."

"You two are nothing like what I expected from Shep's old team," Kasumi mused from across the table. "She always looked so buttoned up in the pictures."

"And don't even get me started on the shit we had to put up with from Shepard…" Tali began, trailing off when she noticed Shepard herself entering the mess hall. "Keelah."

"She's...smiling. This early? That's never a good sign," I observed in shock as Shepard made her way over to our table.

"Good morning crew! Please, don't stop on my account," Shepard said with a smirk. "I'd love to hear what 'shit you had to put up with.'"

Tali recovered faster than I did.

"Well, my favorite was the time with Ashley's armor–" Shepard's eyes widened, and she waved her hands in a panicked gesture for Tali to stop– "when we all woke up to the sound of someone yelling on the crew deck."

"Tali, you promised never to tell that story. _Promised_," Shepard muttered.

"You can't swear an entire frigate to secrecy, Shepard. And _everyone_ heard because Ashley was screaming so loud I heard her down on the lower deck. Turns out Shepard had the brilliant—" Tali cupped the speaker over her mouth and added– "_drunken_ idea to paint Williams' armor yellow in the middle of the night. Because...oh do tell the reason again, Shepard?"

I noticed Miranda enter the mess at the far end and make for the coffee, a small quirk of her lips the only sign that she was listening to the story. Shepard saw her too and turned an even brighter shade of red.

"You do realize that I'm the commander of this ship, right? I don't have to answer if I don't want to," Shepard answered stubbornly.

"Shepard's reasoning was that if Chief Williams insisted on looking like a Power Ranger, she should at least be the 'decent' one," Tali revealed anyway, not even flinching at Shepard's glare.

However, even Shepard had to smile at the startled laughs pulled from the human crew members listening in, Crewman Matthews ribbing his partner, Hadley, when the man's gaze stayed too long on the grinning commander. Shepard made room for herself at the table with a raised eyebrow for me, and it was almost like the last two years fell away. I didn't miss chasing Saren, but I had missed _this_, that warmth that filled the room when everyone was happy together.

Tali, at least, seemed to bring that feeling with her, no matter whose company she was in. She had set to explaining the Power Ranger reference to the non-humans with animated movements when Miranda approached the table with a food laden tray. I rolled my eyes at Shepard's star-struck expression, practically drooling as she reached for the plate of chocolate chip pancakes nestled in between piles of eggs and veggies.

Miranda slapped her hand away. "Protein, Shepard. Your body still needs help rebuilding your muscles," she chastised. "These are for…"

Miranda trailed off when Jacob left the table with only a muttered, "Excuse me," then she sighed and wordlessly handed the plate of pancakes to Shepard, who sat down happily after filching a fork off the tray.

"You didn't make these yourself, right?" Shepard checked, lifting up the edge of a pancake with her fork.

Miranda frowned at her, just barely dragging her eyes away from Jacob's back. "No, Shepard. They're safe," she waved Shepard off with a small motion of her hand.

The atmosphere between Miranda and Jacob had been hostile since their return from scouting for Jacob's father. Unfortunately, all I knew was that they'd found the man in dubious circumstances, and Miranda killed him after Jacob asked her to make the decision for him. It was probably safe to say he regretted the choice, but why he thought it would turn out differently was beyond me. Don't put the life of your asshole father in the hands of someone who'd gladly kill her own asshole father, is all I was saying.

However, considering that Shepard was steadfastly ignoring the rising tension (unless it began to affect the mission, I assumed), I wasn't likely to hear much more on the subject. I let the matter drop for my mind, much like the rest of the crew as they awkwardly turned back to their conversations.

"Shepard," I said, scrolling through my messages on my omni-tool after pushing away my empty tray. "Liara is messaging me that you haven't responded back to her."

Shepard choked on the bite of pancakes she'd just popped into her mouth. "She broke up with me and then sent a message with the subject header of 'Personal.' I deleted it," she replied after clearing her throat.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Miranda's wrist fall slack, and she would have dropped the entire tray of food had Shepard not caught the end. She rested a hand on Miranda's arm with a raised eyebrow.

"You okay?" she asked, frowning.

"Yes. Perfectly fine," Miranda replied. She made to turn, seemingly to escape the room, but whirled right into Jack, who'd come up behind her. Shepard reached up and steadied the tray of food for a second time, this time nabbing one of the plates of eggs with a grin.

"Cheerleader, why the hell is my mission the only one that keeps getting pushed back?" Jack demanded, shoving a finger in Miranda's face. "I was promised a trip to Pragia weeks ago."

"If you wish to discuss missions, Shepard is sitting…"

I tuned out the now daily disagreement between the Cerberus officer and the convict with a dismissive sigh, leaning in to continue my conversation with Shepard. "She said it's something important about your mother."

"Well, now I'm doubly glad I deleted it," Shepard retorted, not bothering to turn from where she was watching and listening to the argument between Miranda and Jack with intense focus.

I rolled my eyes at her, but otherwise continued on until I was stymied by two messages from my father. The first was a stilted request for a call. My mother was getting worse. And the salarian research facility cost more money than my father could make. I frowned. _Shit._

Jack's voice distracted me, and I looked up, surprised to see her nose inches from Miranda's.

"Oh please. Shepard may be the commander, but everyone knows she doesn't do the fucking _scheduling_," Jack snarled.

"She's makes a valid point," Shepard murmured to me as Miranda took her own step into Jack's space with a retort about the hierarchy of the ship.

I nodded absently to Shepard that I'd heard and read my second message, which quite frankly, didn't make any sense. Not an hour after the first message, my father sent me a message thanking me for the wire transfer (with a postscript from my sister making a less than subtle dig about what I'd had to do to get _that_ kind of money).

I never sent my family money.

"Fine, yes, I moved your mission back. Garrus' request was time sensitive," Miranda replied, the mention of my name pulling at my attention again. "You, on the other hand, want to blow up a Cerberus facility that, I might add, is made of concrete. It's not bloody going anywhere."

Jack's face turned an interesting shade of purple, but Shepard cut in before she could explode.

"Jack," Shepard said, her voice soft but firm. She and Miranda both froze, and I had to stifle a smile at Miranda trying to recompose herself into some form of professionalism. "Miranda may do the scheduling, but she sends everything to me for approval. I apologize for not telling you the mission was moved, but look, I promise we'll go to Pragia next, no matter what."

Jack's pointed finger curled into the rest of her fist before she dropped it sharply into the tray Miranda still held, scattering the contents to the floor with a clang of dishes, before storming off towards the elevator.

"I just can't win today," Miranda said dryly, staring down at her now soiled uniform.

"Good thing I saved these," Shepard replied, shoving more eggs into her mouth, and Miranda's grimace turned into a half-smile, exasperation melting into fondness as she shook her head. That same smile disappeared the moment Shepard looked up at her again. "Don't worry so much, Miranda. I'll have a talk with her."

I stared between the two of them and noticed Tali doing the same, and we shared a confused glance over the table as Miranda disappeared into her office, Shepard's eyes very obviously trailing after her.

"Are you ready to go, Shepard?" I asked finally, grabbing the commander's attention. "I'd like to get this over with."

She gripped my arm with a grin. "Absolutely. I've been looking forward to a mission with just you and me. Shepard and Vakarian: Going Solo."

That made one of us. Working with Shepard was great, but the prospect of finally confronting Sidonis today was making my stomach feel ill.

Or maybe that was just the usual uneasiness from watching Shepard eat like an animal.

"Sounds like a bad porno," Zaeed added.

Shepard grimaced at him. "Thanks for that, Zaeed. Real classy," she grunted, pushing up from the table and depositing her tray and multiple plates by the industrial dishwasher.

XXX

Within the hour, we were geared up and raring to go, the prospect of an ending to this mess with Sidonis making me fidget with anticipation. Surprisingly, everyone but Miranda, Samara and Jack met us on deck, milling about as if waiting for Shepard's permission to leave even though she'd dismissed everyone this morning. I was pleased at the little smile that blossomed on Shepard's face again when she saw them.

Shepard's smile didn't last long, wilting and curling up into tight impassivity the moment the opening airlock door revealed a woman standing at the end of the platform. The gleam of her Alliance stripes was visible even from the distance, and Shepard's back stiffened immediately while I echoed the tension in my own spine as we stepped closer. I recognized this woman's face.

"What are you doing here?" Shepard hissed as soon as the rest of the team shuffled by, sneaking glances at Shepard's tight frown and the woman's straight shoulders. However, no one need guess at the woman's identity: the resemblance was clear.

"Is it so strange that I might want to see my daughter after she's been miraculously raised from the dead?" Hannah Shepard asked, eyes narrowing around green pupils. _Hm, green_, I noticed with a flash of concern.

"What, did you come to ask me to refund my funeral? I'm sorry the arrangements must have been so inconvenient for you," Shepard snapped. "Because you're certainly not here just to check on my health."

Hannah's lips thinned, but otherwise gave no reaction in the face of Shepard's taunt. "You're angry. It's understandable, and working with an organization like Cerberus can't be helping. I thought you knew better."

"Listen, if you've just come to be condescending, I have things to get done today," Shepard replied, an arm out readying to push past her mother.

"I'd like you to come back to the Alliance," Hannah said, stopping Shepard cold in her tracks. "I can't make an official offer because of your new affiliations, but I know for a fact the Alliance would take you back. If you asked."

I took a step closer to Shepard while my mandibles flicked in irritation. My family's high position in the Turian Hierarchy meant I was well versed in these kinds of politics—_well_ versed even if I hadn't liked it—and this blunt attempt by the Alliance to gain Shepard's loyalty again was easily recognized. Offensive, even, in its lack of subtlety. _Can't make an official offer, my ass._

"The word is starting to get out," I said, gripping Shepard's shoulder. "That the Hero of the Citadel is alive and working with Cerberus." I shared a glance with Shepard and added, "Horizon."

"The Alliance doesn't like that I made a difference while they were ignoring the problem out in the colonies," Shepard said, finding confirmation in the tightness around her mother's eyes. "And they think you could convince me to come back." Hannah nodded, just barely, and Shepard blew out a sigh. "Well, they sure as hell sent the wrong person," she growled, turning her back on her mother to lean on the dock railing.

"Anderson wasn't available today," Hannah replied. Shepard's eyes flashed at the offhanded quip.

"Even if I wanted to come back...what's the catch? I'm not going to stop helping those colonists; someone needs to acknowledge what's happening," Shepard demanded.

"Of course. The Alliance cares about the colonists as well, but resources are stretched thin after the battle with the geth. Too thin to have pledged support to you when you first resurfaced," Hannah replied.

Shepard's lip curled up as she stared hard at her mother. "No doubt you're about to tell me how I can fix that problem."

"We received word that a very high ranking Cerberus operative is, in fact, working with you on the _Normandy_–"

"–received word?" Shepard interrupted. "From whom?"

"The unofficial report from your former crewmate, Chief Williams. Not that it matters. You aren't known for keeping secrets," Hannah dismissed. She pushed a strand of blonde hair away from her face, the action emphasizing the age lines spider webbing from her eyes. It was eerie just how similar she would look to her daughter without those lines to distinguish her. "This woman, however, I'm sure is the reason you've been so hard to find. Mass relay jumps erased from the records within milliseconds of the _Normandy_ passing through, our IT techs stymied at bank accounts that are seemingly untraceable...I could go on."

"Ash never met the whole crew. I don't know who–"

"Don't get coy," Hannah snapped, eyes flashing in a way I'd seen hundreds of times when Shepard was angry. "Miranda Lawson has been a thorn in our side for years. And _now_ she's gone and brought someone back from the dead...that kind of potential used in service to Cerberus..." Hannah trailed off and stared straight at her daughter. "She's the shadow behind the Illusive Man, his top agent. All of our information indicates that if we acquire her, we could completely dismantle Cerberus. To say nothing of bringing down a terrorist organization...they also have a lot of money that could be redirected to other _efforts_."

Shepard looked strangely pale, and when she spoke, it had a strangled quality to it. "What did you call her?"

"The Illusive Man trusts her, likely intends for her to take over when he's gone. You can see why she would be the key, and why our Alliance task force has so far been unsuccessful in apprehending someone so well protected. She hasn't been this vulnerable in five years," the captain continued as if she hadn't heard. "So that's the deal. Full pardon and reinstatement back into the Alliance. You'll remain in command on the _Normandy. _All you have to do is hand over Miranda Lawson."

Shepard blinked slowly, a fist curling at her side. She looked up at me, and it was like I could see the war playing out behind her eyes. Then she sighed, the breath dragging ragged from her lungs, and began walking farther down the dock.

"It was lovely to see you again, Mother," Shepard said dully. I hurried to follow but looked back to see Hannah Shepard's mouth slightly ajar in surprise. Her hand reached out in an almost helpless gesture before she curled it up at her side again, mirroring her daughter's.

"The offer will remain open. Not forever, but you have time, should you change your mind," her mother added quietly as we retreated.

Shepard didn't look back and didn't slow until she'd hastily shoved me around the corner, submerging the two of us in the anonymity of the crowd around the main docks. I knocked shoulders with a salarian, and he grumbled at me before pushing past. I lost sight of Shepard in the distraction, finding her a moment later leaned up against a wall with her knuckles pressed loosely to her mouth.

The crowd formed a little bubble around us as different species all went shuffling by on their own business, careful to skirt around the two of us. Then again, we looked suitably intimidating decked out in full armor, not that Shepard looked it at the moment. She continued to stare at the ground, hand still at her mouth, while a spark of panic crept into her eyes when she looked up at me.

"Shepard," I started.

"Wait, don't," Shepard ordered, straightening. "I'm fine. Yes. Today is about you and your mission. I'm fine."

"You aren't fine," I stated, frowning. "If you need–"

Shepard looked up at me, shaking her head, but her eyebrows were still furrowed, worried.

"What did I just do?" Shepard burst out, pushing her mouth back into her fist again. "She offered me exactly what I've been wanting. A chance to go back to how things were. And I _walked away_. What is _wrong_ with me?"

"She was probably lying," I offered. "They just wanted Miranda; they wouldn't have been bound to follow through on the offer once they had her."

There was more I could say, like how I didn't think, in a million years, she would have given Miranda over to the Alliance, not knowing what they would do to her. Shepard's mother might have been impressed by Miranda's capabilities, but they would never trust her. The Alliance wasn't looking to _recruit_, just to destroy, and the Shepard I knew wouldn't value her place in the Alliance over Miranda's life and happiness. She just wouldn't.

"Please tell me you aren't honestly considering this," I said, letting my distaste color my tone when Shepard's gaze held fixed on the direction of the _Normandy _and her mother.

Shepard's eyes shot to mine. "No, no. Of course not," she answered, shaking her head with a jerk, but her shoulders were just a bit heavier as she pushed away from the wall.

I followed as she elbowed into the crowd, leading the two of us to the coordinates set, but there was no more bounce to her step and she avoided my eyes by walking slightly ahead. I frowned, but horrible as the thought was, I didn't mind the change. This day had been long in coming, but I'd never expected to enjoy it: didn't _want_ to enjoy it. My vengeance on the turian who betrayed me was as much my punishment as it was his. I'd been the one to accept Sidonis; I'd trusted him.

It was that break from loyalty that made Sidonis' actions that much harder to swallow. _Victory, at any cost_. That was what I, and every turian, had been taught at birth. Sidonis should have died rather than betray us. It was why I was here, to make things right, to deal out justice on a traitor.

My eyes drifted to the back of Shepard's head.

"Alright, these are the coordinates," Shepard announced.

"You're late," a large krogan rumbled, his heavy steps announcing his presence before his words.

"I'm not late when my resources are what transported you off Omega in the first place. Time for Aria to pay up," Shepard demanded.

The krogan's eyes narrowed, and I heard a quiet growl in the recesses of his chest.

"The one you're looking for was hidden by a forger named Fade. He's here on the Citadel," he revealed.

"I smuggle Aria's infamous Patriarch off Omega so it doesn't look like she's protecting him, and that's all I get? That tiny scrap of information?" Shepard growled.

The Patriarch gave a loud bark of laughter and leaned in to look at her better. "You also get to _use_ the infamous Patriarch. What better way to lure a forger out than the promise of a high profile, high paying customer?"

Shepard settled next to me, and I nodded. "That's perfect. They'd probably flee at the sight of me or you, Shepard. No doubt Sidonis knew I'd be looking for him. And you can't seem to go anywhere without being recognized, though it would probably help if you took the obvious N7 off your chest plate," I said to Shepard.

"Hey," she scoffed. "I worked hard for that. And it's not like I'm wearing the Spectre wings. I could be any N7 operative."

I blinked at her in disbelief, and she shrugged.

"I'm guessing you know how to contact Fade? Or did Aria expect us to do all the work?" Shepard asked.

"This is Aria being generous," Patriarch replied, rolling his shoulders back. "She must like you." Shepard raised her eyebrows. "And yes, contact has been initiated. They're meeting me at the warehouse, just over there."

"And if Fade doesn't show up in person?" I inquired, glancing at Shepard.

"I think the usual methods will suffice to find his location," Shepard deadpanned.

"I thought we were trying to resolve this without a firefight on the Citadel. Under the radar, remember?" I pointed out.

"Who said anything about guns?"

I grinned at her.

Shepard and I settled in to wait at the taxi stand, and Patriarch ambled off to make the connection after being patched into our comms to signal when he was ready. Shepard brought up the video from Patriarch's suit and kept an eye on it. Neither of us mentioned how we were going to be able to tell if the person who showed was actually Fade or not.

"So, uh…" My eyes darted to Shepard, who was biting her lip. "Why did you never mention Sidonis?" Shepard asked. "I mean, before now. You were just so tight lipped about it all."

"What was there to talk about?" I snapped, and Shepard's eyes widened. "I'm getting revenge for the deaths of my team because I trusted the wrong person. End of story."

"You were betrayed, Garrus. It's not the same thing. It isn't your fault," Shepard argued.

"I was in charge. Of course it's my fault," I growled, staring at her. "We can't all be you, Shepard."

I was surprised at the bitterness in my own voice, had never considered that I might be slightly jealous of what Shepard had accomplished. But the words came out anyway because I'd killed my entire team while Shepard was gone. I'd had the opportunity to make a difference _on my own_, and instead...my mandibles flexed in distress.

"What you're forgetting is the number of lives you saved before Sidonis. Your men knew what they were getting into, and I'm sure they were proud of all that you managed to do. And, remember, I've killed—and gotten killed—more people than I can count at this point. More than just ten people, I assure you. But I sleep at night because the number of people I've saved outnumbers those I've killed. Bloody arithmetic, Garrus. You taught me that," Shepard said.

Silence filled the gap between us until I sighed.

"Was that supposed to make me feel better?" I asked.

"Did it?"

I levelled my eyes at her. "I don't know. I don't think so. It wasn't one of your more inspiring speeches."

Shepard gave a sad smile and then her head cocked to the side as we both caught something on the comms. She looked up at me. "Think this is our guy?"

The next hour passed in a blur. Fade turned out to be Harkin, an old washout from C-Sec that I'd never liked. He was a deadbeat, a crook. He was exactly the kind of person who would run a small-time forgery business—small enough that the offer from Patriarch was high enough to agree to a personal appearance.

Most importantly, Harkin was weak. He broke with mild physical violence and a threat to break his spine. I pushed a little too hard with my foot on his neck, and one hand drifted to the gun at my hip to kill him. One shot and no one would have to deal with him ever again. That's what Archangel was for, after all: to kill criminals. So why shouldn't I do it?

Yet, something about having Shepard there, though she'd made no moves to restrain me, stilled my hand. I thought darkly of all the criminals that had been removed by that same hand in Shepard's absence and couldn't decide if I was grateful or resentful of her influence.

I was still trying to decide an hour later when Shepard and I sat up in the maintenance rafters of a Citadel walkway, staring down on Sidonis. Patriarch had parted ways long ago to settle himself on the Citadel for a few days until Aria summoned him back, though I didn't understand why the krogan didn't go establish himself somewhere else. Aria may have kept him like a trophy, she also didn't prevent him from leaving. Yet, Patriarch gave no indication that he wouldn't return when called.

"So…" Shepard trailed off and glaced at me sideways. "You just want to look at him all day? Because I'm assuming at some point he's going to get suspicious and leave."

The crosshairs of my scope laid perfectly over Sidonis' head. All it would take was the pull of the trigger. My vengeance could be deal in a matter of seconds. I just had to move my finger.

"Do you remember Dr. Saleon?" I asked her, sighing and leaning back from my gun.

"Crazy scientist that grew organs inside people to harvest? How could I forget?" Shepard replied.

"Killing him made sense. He was going to continue his experiments," I mused. "Sidonis–" My voice cracked, and I tried to cover with a cough– "is responsible for the deaths of my team. He _deserves _to die, just like Dr. Saleon."

"Are you trying to convince me? Because this isn't my mission, Garrus" Shepard observed lowly.

"It was easy with Saleon," I said, watching her from the corner of my eye. "It was easy because I didn't give the order. But you've barely said a word today."

"I won't make this decision for you," Shepard asserted, not unkindly.

I stared at her, thinking of the days when she would have gladly taken this call as her own. The gun wouldn't even be in my hands because Shepard would have decided by now whether this mission was right or not. However, the cool, green eyes I looked at now gave away nothing, no hint as to what she wished me to do.

I took a deep breath and said a small prayer to connect with the spirit of my team, the team that now had dwindled down to two people, but where once that prayer made me feel strong, inspired by the fervor of my men to do good, I now felt hollow. Hollow because I couldn't draw inspiration from a team that had long been extinct. Or at least, was soon to be extinct.

I looked through the scope again at Sidonis' face, and I pulled the trigger.

Slowly, I scratched out his name on my rifle, blocking out the sound of startled screams from the crowd below.

"Did it make you feel better?" Shepard asked.

I began to put my equipment away, avoiding her eyes.

"Not even a little bit."

XXX

Miranda

Once my clothes were changed after their encounter with Jack, I double checked the list and itinerary I'd written out for the day and hastened toward the airlock. Joker's eyes shifted to me from the cockpit, widening as I approached the airlock, and the crease between my eyebrows deepened when he hurriedly refocused on the control panel in front of him.

"Access denied," EDI's voice informed me as I pressed a palm to the door controls.

"EDI, open the door," I ordered, frowning.

"Commander Shepard has ordered that you are not to leave the ship," EDI said, her mechanical tone mimicking regret but failing to capture it completely.

"Did the commander specify a reason?" I seethed, fixing my glare on the back of Joker's head. Shepard clearly knew I planned to leave the ship today. We'd spoken about it only this morning. In bed. Together. Where we'd talked over the pillows like waking up next to each other was becoming perfectly natural.

I forced my thoughts away from that line of memory.

"The commander did not specify a reason," EDI said.

"Joker…" I said, my voice neutral as I approached his chair slowly. "You always listen to the comms."

"That doesn't mean–" My sneer snapped into place, and Joker shrank back into his chair with a grimace before he spilled– "Shepard's mother is here. And looking for you, apparently."

"That's hardly news," I replied, irritated, especially when Joker's eyebrows shot up. _Why did Shepard think I was keeping our trail hidden? Did she think I was doing it for my own amusement?_ "Besides, EDI should have hidden our signature from their docking records almost immediately. How did they even find us?"

"That's something to ask the commander," Joker answered, and my eyes flickered back to his face instead of on the frustrated wringing of my hands.

"I'll be having a look at our security," I sighed, turning to leave only to be met by the asari Justicar approaching through the CIC.

"I heard," she said, prefacing any explanation I might have. "We'll make due. With so much of the crew gone, we could simply start your training in your office. It won't require much room."

I hesitated but nodded quickly when I felt Joker's curious eyes burning into the back of my neck. I'd liked the sound of starting my first attempt at reaving far away from the ship, where we would have privacy from any crew, but Samara was correct that most of them had eagerly grabbed at the chance to be off the ship.

I led us back to my room, retracing the steps I'd made just a few short minutes ago. Samara took in the surroundings quietly while her eyes glided over the austere black and white furniture. She turned to me with the barest hint of smile before gesturing forward.

"It's best if we're comfortable," she explained, taking a seat on the couch Grunt usually claimed as his own (so often that there were the beginnings of an imprint where he sat). Samara rotated sideways and crossed her legs on the cushions, watching me expectantly until I mirrored her. I shifted until my legs were pressing atop my ankles softly.

Samara reached out and took my hands, and I tried not to cringe away from her touch. Yet I still flinched, and she noticed (of course she did). Samara smiled kindly and let go.

"This is why I asked you to wait and prepare yourself. In order to connect on a level that would share pain between us, I have to meld deeply with you. I promised I would not go looking at things you don't wish to share, but there is a necessary..._intimacy_ involved in this." Samara stared straight into my eyes, unblinking even when I wished she'd look away, show some sort of vulnerability to the idea of being in my head. "Teaching someone this skill has great meaning, even if you wish to learn only for practicalities' sake."

I swallowed the lump in my throat, clenching down on my teeth. "Humans have learned reaving before. Never has it been treated as something sacred."

"Humans have also killed the targets they were meant to be practicing on. The asari way eliminates those kinds of accidents," Samara explained.

"Because I wouldn't be able to kill you without killing myself," I caught on.

Samara nodded. "You must be certain you wish to proceed," she urged.

"I am," I replied, steeling myself with a deep breath.

Samara nodded again, but this time a wave of uneasiness rippled across the serene surface of her face.

"It has been many years since I was a teacher," she confided, taking my hands once more. The statement was simple, but something about the forced evenness of her voice hinted at a deeper meaning, one I wasn't in a position to press for.

"It's my honor to learn," I said after a beat.

"Then relax," Samara said, swirls of inky blackness beginning to cloud her eyes, "and _embrace eternity_."

The initial onslaught was too much: four eyes, four ears, two heartbeats, and colors that I didn't know existed. Then I could feel the silent command: _close your eyes_. I did, and it helped, helped me sink into the calm pool that was Samara's mind wrapping around my own. She felt like warm stone, unyielding and ageless, and her senses blocked out mine until, _finally,_ I seemed to remember how to breathe, locked there in the depths of a person who knew the true meaning of the word _stop_. Because stop it did; the whole galaxy stopped. A flicker of worry about Shepard and her whereabouts was batted away by Samara with an almost effortless expression of will, and she repeated the feat until my mind was quiet, noticing only the two of us breathing in tandem.

_The meld will be more intense as I deepen the connection. Are you ready?_ Samara asked, the thought drifting across like so many leaves in the wind.

_This isn't it?_ I replied. Samara tamped down my anxiety with a wave of her own reassurance, and I straightened my back at her subtle squeezing of my hands. Any other time, she would never know my emotions, never know how uncertain I felt, but in my own mind...My jaw clenched.

_This connection is only deep enough for you to be aware of my presence. Once we are deep enough, you will feel my body as well as your own._

Samara gave me no further warning, submersing me until it felt like falling through a well that had no bottom. Nothing could have prepared me for the breathless, stomach aching sensation of being connected to a second body, to _feel _like I could move Samara's arms as my own, even when my mind knew that I couldn't.

Soon enough, the blank, black void fell away until I felt grass tickling the skin on the underside of my legs and could smell the cloying sweetness of some fruit on the breeze. I took in the picture being projected by Samara's mind with more than a little hesitation.

_Where are we?_ I asked, 'looking' around at a park filled with mostly asari. There were other species as well, but they were few and far in between and stuck close to the side of their asari partners.

_A memory_, Samara provided, _Thessia. Near the estate of a good friend of mine_.

A high pitched shriek sounded nearby, and my, no, _Samara's_, attention was drawn to two young asari giggling as a third pouted. Samara's pride saturated the memory until I felt the emotion welling up in my own chest.

_My daughters_, Samara explained. The thought came tinged with sadness, but further explanation was sealed behind the remaining walls of Samara's mind.

_Why are you showing this to me?_ I asked. The sun on my face was hot, and I found myself tilting my chin to catch more of the warmth. It'd been so long since I'd been on the surface of a non-hostile, real planet. Missions and the simulated environments of space stations couldn't compare to this feeling.

Nevermind that it was only the memory of a sun. However, Samara's memory proved remarkably detailed, only blurring once I tried to see too far away. It made me wonder at everything she'd noticed on the _Normandy_.

_I hoped it would make you feel more comfortable_.

_That isn't necessary_, I said.

_Not everything needs be by necessity._ Samara let her response hang in the space between us until I sighed out a thank you. The majority of the memory fell away and I was acutely aware of the how my hands felt in Samara's. Not the roughness of Samara's palms, but the sensation of _my own hands_ as felt by Samara. It was disorienting.

_We will now begin, _Samara said, refocusing me. _Reach out with your biotics. Search for me._ I did, and Samara seemed pleased. _Good. Now, it is commonly misunderstood that reaving attacks the nervous system. It _does _but the nervous system is not what you're reaching for. You will be using mass effect fields on your enemy's circulatory system. By decreasing the mass of their blood volume, you decrease their blood pressure. _

_But if I decrease the mass of their entire blood volume...they'll simply die. The heart won't be able to pump, oxygen doesn't get to the brain. They'd most likely die of a stroke. _I protested, though my mind was whirling with the possibilities. I'd never thought to attack such a basic system directly.

Samara gave a mental shake of her head. _You must go slowly and direct the reave where you want it. Start with extremities: arms, legs. The pressure drops only in those areas, and the body works against itself, constricting the blood vessels to try to increase the pressure again. But the vessels can only constrict so far, eventually cutting off blood flow altogether. Without blood flow to the nerves…_

_Intense pain, _I finished for her. It made sense. By acting slowly, there would be more to it than just a stroke. Blood pressure affected everything. The target's heart rate would pick up to try and increase pressure, the blood vessels would constrict, and the body's first response when something was wrong was to signal with pain. Pain in the chest when the heart started to compensate, then pain in the limbs targeted, followed by a massive headache when the brain started to become oxygen deprived. All of this supposing the person didn't pass out first. I could feel Samara agreeing with my conclusions. _I can't possibly practice this on you. What about permanent damage?_

_You will not be holding it long enough to hurt me. But this is also why a meld is safer to practice. If you don't control where the mass effect fields are, you could affect my whole body causing, as you said, death. However, with the meld, we would both pass out should that happen. Your biotics would release, my blood flow would return, and we would both be fine. _Samara squeezed my hands in her own. _Go ahead and try_.

I focused only on Samara's right arm and engaged my biotics, letting them ribbon out until they overlayed her blood vessels before creating the mass effect field. Sweat beaded on my forehead as I struggled to hold it, fighting even as an unpleasant tingling started in my own arm. The pain began as I focused harder: a burning fire down all of my arm that had me biting my lip. I released it with a gasp, panting heavily.

Samara pulled away from the meld slowly before severing it completely, depositing me back in my body in a disorienting heap.

I stared across the couch at her. "What, that's it?"

"We have been in a meld for several hours," Samara replied. "That was excellent for your first attempt, but we should not push your progress. This is not a skill that responds well to overexertion."

My eyebrows furrowed down of their own accord. It was unfathomable: stopping before any real progress had been made. Had she given me the choice, I would have pressed on. I was certain I could have done much more given another chance.

Samara squeezed my hands, still holding them gently in her own without my notice. "You have done enough."

It was a simple enough statement but one that rang true enough to twist sickeningly in my stomach, wondering how much of my thoughts had been available to Samara through the meld. Or perhaps she was simply perceptive, I managed to concede with a small frown. Samara was an asari in her matron stage, after all.

"I didn't realize you two would still be training," Shepard interrupted, preceded by the whirring of the door lock as it yielded before her.

It was a good thing Samara wasn't still privy to my feelings—even though I was fairly certain she could feel the quickening of my pulse through our joined hands—considering the flush that colored my cheeks at the sound of the commander's voice. I didn't cherish the thought of someone in the crew knowing just how flustered one mess of a woman made me, and I didn't turn to face Shepard until I was certain my face was back to its normal color.

"We had just finished," Samara said, raising from the couch and giving me a small smile. "I'll be taking my leave."

"Thank you," I remembered before she disappeared through the door. Samara gave a nod in acknowledgement.

"First session go well?" Shepard asked.

Her question was followed by a quirk of a smile as she dropped into the vacancy left by the asari. (A vacancy left in more ways than one. The end of the meld had left me feeling surprisingly open. Empty, even.) Shepard twined her fingers together in her lap and let them rest on the top of her leg, watching me expectantly.

I stared at that simple motion far longer than was necessary, caught in the remembrance of those same fingers fisting in the loose material of my shirt this morning, holding me near. Much as Shepard had been trying to maintain space between us during our new sleeping arrangement, I'd woken up the past three mornings always with some small contact to Shepard: a hand, a knee, her nose buried in the space between my shoulder blades.

I'd been sure to start my mornings early instead of ruminating on how that made me feel. How the very concept of someone being in bed with me and wanting nothing more than a simple _touch_ made me feel.

"Yes," I answered finally. "Not as much as I would have liked, but there was some progress made."

Shepard smirked at me knowingly. "An asari meld is definitely an experience. I'm glad yours wasn't an unpleasant one," she said.

"Not at all. It…" I trailed off, looking for the words. It hadn't been unpleasant, but it wasn't something I would actively search out beyond the purpose of my training. Samara was a strong, soothing presence, but any foreign presence in my mind made me wary. I wasn't used to that kind of vulnerability. "...was useful."

"It also takes a lot out of you, and it's already late. You're tired," Shepard stated. When I opened my mouth to protest—there was still plenty to do. I hadn't planned on the training taking so many hours, after all—she added, "I can see it on your face, Miranda."

I was certain she could see no such thing. I was tired, of course, but it wouldn't show. It definitely wouldn't show once I'd retrieved the coffee I was so used to grabbing at this hour. But then I saw Shepard's eyes slide longingly to the bed behind me, and I wanted to sigh in exasperation. S_he_ was tired.

"Considering someone barred me from leaving the ship this morning, I have work still to do double checking the crewmen I was forced to delegate my task list to. I'll be up later," I insisted, already moving to my desk.

If I thought my offhanded comment would spur Shepard to elaborate on why a visit from her mother required my quarantine to the ship, I was wrong. Instead, Shepard just frowned at me before walking to my bed, kicking off her shoes and pants as she went before pulling back the covers.

"Shepard, I thought we'd agreed–"

"–I can sneak back to my cabin in the morning, just like you've done the past three days. Except maybe this way, you'll actually come to bed faster," Shepard grumbled, burrowing into the covers. My stomach swooped low at the offhanded, innocent comment, even more at the sound of bare legs sliding across my sheets.

I focused on my computer instead, but the first notification in my inbox had me frowning back at the commander again. Shepard had now perched a datapad on her chest, the light shining on the half of her face that was above the covers, and her eyes danced quickly across the lines. Her eyes moved to me once when she realized I was looking, then darted away again.

My lips thinned as I pushed a sigh through my nose, turning back around. Instead of being bothered by what she was reading, I checked inventory and filed a report for our stop on the Citadel with an attached estimate of how long our stay would be. Instead of thinking about how I could hear her swallow in the quiet of the room, I drew up the budget for the next week, using the previous week as a baseline and comparing it to last month's expenses with adjusted values for added crewmembers to ensure accuracy.

Then, instead of concentrating on the way Shepard had been biting her lip the last time I'd chanced a look behind me, I quickly vetted the ground crew's emails. I hadn't had cause to withhold any messages as of yet, but it did give me valuable insight. Like that someone had found a way to contact Jack, but she hadn't replied to them. Or the revelation about Garrus' mother. That one had been surprisingly difficult to send on, almost as if I were getting _attached _to these people. However, I shoved that notion straight from my mind, continuing in spite of the gaze I felt hot on the back of my neck until, finally, I could justify standing from my desk and preparing for bed.

"What is it?" I asked eventually, secured on my side of the bed. I looked across at Shepard, her drooping eyes still stubbornly glued to what she was reading. "You opened my dossier, and you've been staring."

Shepard's lips thinned, but it didn't stop the color that flooded onto her cheeks. "Something my mother said has been bothering me," Shepard said, voice soft but strong in the dim lamplight that had flickered on once the overheads had been switched off. "Miranda, what exactly is your position in Cerberus?"

"I've explained this already," I said with a frown. "We don't have the kind of hierarchy that you're used to. There are multiple cells and, above that, the Illusive Man. Granted there are a handful of intermediaries between the cells and the Illusive Man, but their position is mostly administrative, and they're kept under lock and key. One man can't read everything required to run an organization that large."

"No, I understand that. But what if the Illusive Man were to die today? Who would run Cerberus?" Shepard asked, more insistent this time.

My heart gave an uneven flop in my chest.

"That's what I thought," Shepard continued in my silence. "Which begs the questions of why the Illusive Man wouldn't fill in his successor on all of Cerberus' operations?"

"I haven't been lying," I asserted. "There are certain things that only the Illusive Man has access to, no matter my relation to the organization. I've told you this before."

"But could you have stopped it?" Shepard's eyes locked onto mine, brimming with anxious light.

"Could I have stopped what?" I asked.

"Any of it: Akuze, Elise—I finally opened that file too—the experiments on husks, or the ones with Thorian creepers?"

Shepard's breathing had quickened now, waiting for my answer.

"No," I stated, and if a small amount of annoyance seeped into my voice, well it wasn't completely unwarranted. "If you opened Elise's file, then you know my name is nowhere in it. Nor would you find it on any of those other operations."

The silence was tense between us. Shepard's hands were bunched in the blankets as she kept her gaze on me, and it was the way she bit her lip that told me she didn't completely believe me.

"Shepard, I've been telling you the truth. I never even knew some of those existed until recently. The ones I did...I believed the Illusive Man when he told me to clean up the cell because they'd disobeyed orders. And that was still after the fact. The rest were carefully hidden," I answered.

"I was afraid to open it." Shepard confessed into the space between us, then clarified, "Elise's file. I was terrified you were involved. I didn't want you to be. Didn't want to go back to hating you."

Maybe it was because Shepard had offered up a confession of her own, left just one small piece of herself vulnerable, that prompted me to do the same. Perhaps it was because it was easier to whisper hidden thoughts over pillows than speak them over desks.

"I'm starting to believe the Illusive Man hid certain things from me on purpose. This mission, and the revelations that come with it, are starting to feel like a test," I murmured.

"And are you passing or failing?" Shepard asked, turning so she was on her side and fully facing me.

"I think I might be failing," I almost whispered, the epiphany strange to my own ears.

Shepard's only response was to slide her hand under the sheets to hold mine, a low hum sounding in her throat. Her thumb brushed over my knuckles, and a shiver went through me that I hoped Shepard didn't notice. Then my eye caught a familiar face smiling back at me from the datapad Shepard had set aside. I reached to grab it before she could put it away.

The headline 'The Elusive Lawson Heiress' was in bold across the top. There was a picture posted underneath. It was of my first presentation to the public during Lawson Pharmaceuticals 75th Annual Gala, just after my fifteenth birthday. (It was the first time I'd ever felt safe because once everyone knew I existed, it would be much harder to dispose of me should my father wish to restart).

I stared over at Shepard, whose cheeks were coloring. "How did you find this?"

"Liara may have sent some files over after Illium. On everyone. But mostly you," Shepard admitted. "You barely look like the same person."

She was right, of course. My teenage self was wearing deep blue silk and dripping in a tasteful amount of diamonds at my ears and around my neck. A matching bracelet shimmered at my wrist, a beautiful contrast to my dress as that hand held the cloth of the garment up, just the smallest amount, to avoid tripping as I descended the stairs. I was smiling, and Niket held my arm, his own smile noticeably more uncomfortable.

"This was long ago. I'm no heiress now," I pointed out.

"Liara included an extensive list of charities that you donate to, as well as their amounts. It's not really my business, but there's no way Cerberus pays you that well," Shepard replied.

"Fine. I stole a large portion of my father's money when I left with Oriana. I invested it, and it makes excellent returns," I said in a clipped voice. "And the charitable donations are simply useful tax deductions."

"I didn't realize terrorists paid taxes," Shepard quipped.

The comment grated on my nerves, rubbed them raw until my mouth had twisted into a snarl and I was sitting up in the bed and swinging my legs over the side. I glared out of the window, festering anger welling in my chest.

"I wish you would stop doing that," I snapped.

"Doing what?" Shepard asked, straightening behind me. I felt more than saw her come close behind me.

"I don't pin all of the Alliance's misdeeds on you, but you pin everything Cerberus has done on me." Shepard stared, wide eyed, at my outburst, but the words kept coming anyway. "I am _not _a terrorist, Shepard. I am not Cerberus," I growled, the anger flowing up to heat my cheeks until I paled at the realization of what I'd just said.

"But you _do_ work for a terrorist organization," Shepard barrelled on. "Just because I think more of you than anyone else in Cerberus, doesn't mean I don't know you're capable of doing some of those horrible things. You and I both know that if you thought the cause was great enough, you wouldn't hesitate."

"Like you haven't done horrible things? Did you know that half of the Zhu's Hope colonists died from medical complications after you left Feros without looking back? Still, that's not counting the ones who never lived past your firefight through the colony, though, perhaps, they're the lucky ones," I bit out, regretting it only once the words had passed my lips and dealt the blow that was sprouting horror on Shepard's face. All because the one thing I could think of in that moment was to inflict pain, to hurt her as much as her words had been hurting me. "You of all people should recognize that we are more than the organizations we work for. Look at you: working for Cerberus even as you condemn it."

"I do _not _work for Cerberus," Shepard growled. She was out of the bed now too, glaring at me as we stared each other down.

I looked around pointedly, eyes stopping on the Cerberus logos decorated liberally throughout my room and office.

"Yes," I enunciated slowly, letting every syllable land with perfect precision. "You do."

A muscle in Shepard's face twitched as she worked her jaw, and red light began to peek out behind the green of her eyes as her cybernetics reacted. She stepped closer, pushing into my space in a way that would have been intimidating until I heard her breath catch in her throat when I tipped my chin up and looked down to meet her glare. Her eyes roved my face, pupils large. I wasn't imagining when they flickered, just briefly, to my lips.

"That doesn't mean I have to," Shepard muttered, jerking her face away and letting her eyes slide to the floor.

Shepard turned on her heel and walked heavily from the room, and I lowered myself to sit on the bed, staring at the closed door as a weight settled into my stomach. I doubted it would open again tonight.

* * *

**Here we are again. I hope you all liked the latest chapter! First off, for those of you who are disappointed that Garrus' loyalty mission is so short, don't worry. I have plans for him. I just don't think Garrus' biggest problem would be the loyalty mission itself; I see him having major issues with accepting his decision and finally letting himself notice that his team is _completely_ gone (notice that his team and what happened hasn't come up in his POV very often? Because he was purposefully _not_ thinking about it. That changes now). What do you think? Agree or not?**

**As for Miranda's section, I did my best to research to make my explanation for reaving believable. However, I am not versed in medical anything so it still probably isn't accurate. I was trying to give background to an ability that wasn't explained very well, especially since biotics are supposed to be manipulating mass, not somehow magically causing pain and giving health back. Did you like Miranda's first session with Samara? What about her fight with Shepard at the end? Girl has some pretty bad timing. **

**(Also, I did decide to go ahead and put Tali/Garrus in the fic. However, it will be a more of a pre-relationship. I like the idea of building them up to ME3).**

**Thanks for reading, and I love hearing from all of you. Reviews make a stressed writer smile!**


	23. Losing Control

Ch. 23: Losing Control

Garrus

_There was a knock on my door, and I looked up. Sidonis. _

"_You're back," I said, relieved. "Everything went to plan?"_

"_As well as it could. A few of the boys got some bumps and bruises, but nothing major. Everyone is in house," Sidonis reported. _

"_Good. Good," I replied, turning my attention back to the blueprints I was studying. _

"_Is that our new operation?" Sidonis asked. _

_My eyes flickered up, surprised Sidonis hadn't left yet. He didn't usually enjoy the planning aspect of our missions, even though he'd helped me form the team in the first place. _

"_Yes," I answered. "Beats me how we're going to pull it off though. The security detail is solid. They're learning."_

_Sidonis grimaced down at a map. "It feels like we're getting nothing done. They're like weeds: popping up tenfold the moment we pull one out."_

"_That's why we work slowly, hitting the operation first. We take their money, their supplies, and then we kill the leaders and anyone else we can. That way anyone hoping to replace them has to start with nothing. These new groups forming are inexperienced and underfunded so long as we keep their shipments from arriving. They'll go down easily enough when we have the time."_

"_You think it's time for one of the big three?" Sidonis asked. _

_I hummed an acknowledgement. "It's risky. But the Suns, Eclipse, and Blood Pack are a threat to the everyday citizens living here. We're finally prepared enough to start taking them on."_

"_Maybe we should consider doing more than just killing them," Sidonis suggested, grey eyes flashing. _

_I straightened in my seat, turning in the chair to face the other turian. "Like what, exactly?"_

"_I just think the punishment should fit the crime. Like that sex trafficking ring. They didn't deserve the easy death they got," Sidonis asserted. _

"_We kill to save lives," I reminded him. "We hunt criminals to give others a better life. Not to turn into the people we're hunting."_

_Sidonis stared at me for a long moment before nodding, eyes dropping for just a second more to the plans scattered across my desk. The room darkened, and I looked around in confusion. _

"_My punishment fit my crime," Sidonis stated. I started, gripping the edge of the desk in horror when I realized there was a bleeding hole growing in the middle of his forehead. "I betrayed you. Out of nowhere. You had no reason to think I was drawing you to a trap. So you did the same to me." He turned so I could see the massive hole in the back of his head where the shot had exited. "I never knew the shot was coming. I died alone."_

"_You deserved it," I growled. "Our team was slaughtered."_

_The room shifted until I was no longer in my office, no longer sitting behind a desk. I was back in my old hideout, and I stared at the neat arrangement of ten bodies laid out across the living room floor. They were covered in white sheets, all but the tenth. The last body oozed out bright blue blood, and when I reached to pull the material down, blood soaked into my boots and pooled between my toes. I gagged, staring down into Sidonis' grey eyes. _

_A hand landed on my shoulder._

"_Ready to go?" Shepard asked. Her mouth thinned with impatience._

"_It's almost like we never even happened," Sidonis growled bitterly, eyes once again alight with life. _

I woke in a cold sweat, tumbling out of the trappings of my thin blankets and onto the chilled, metal floor. I stared up at the ceiling and hoped that the view of grating and wires would replace that of Sidonis blinking up at me. It didn't.

I raised my arm to check the time on my omni-tool and sighed. It was almost morning. Too close to breakfast to go to sleep, but not late enough to leave the safety of my doors: to face the talk that Shepard kept trying to force me to have.

"Can it wait for a bit? I'm in the middle of some calibrations," I had deflected yesterday and the day before. I didn't even bother to use a different excuse when she came back three hours later. Technically, I didn't need to. I _was_ doing some calibrations on the guns. The same calibrations. Over and over. They were the most well calibrated guns ever to exist on a frigate.

Still. I enjoyed Shepard's persistent hovering more than Tali's silence. There were no jokes, no 'I told you so's. She seemed...disappointed, and that made my guilt razor sharp, cutting through my stomach.

That guilt only multiplied in the face of my newest dream and the reminder that I was the only one left. All of that work, two years of turning my team into something worthwhile, and now they were all dead. I'd killed them. Maybe I hadn't been holding the gun for the the other nine, but I'd convinced them to take a risk on me. I'd told them we could make a difference.

I'd changed their lives, but the last two years were already fading to blurry memories in my head, outshined by the brightness of saving the galaxy with Shepard for a second time. She was like a sun pulling others into her orbit and casting shadows on the space behind them, the things that they were before they met her.

Shame gnawed at my gut, and hatred closed my throat. I hated that I could forget them so easily. I hated that my actions had gotten them killed. I hated Sidonis for making me kill him. A small part of me even hated Shepard for letting me.

_We kill to save lives, _my own words came back to taunt me, _not to turn into the people we're hunting. _

Sidonis hadn't been a threat to anyone. I slammed a fist against the floor, and it bounced heavily at my side, the pain radiating through my fingers and into my wrist. I flexed my hand and hissed.

He still deserved it. He did.

A ringing from my omni-tool startled me, and I looked down to see an incoming call lit up on my wrist. I squinted at it. Getting calls through with Cerberus monitoring everything was really difficult.

"Solana?" I asked in surprise.

"Hey, big brother! I heard you might need a chat," Solana preambled. She winked a rose colored eye at me, the markings on her cheek stretching with the motion.

"I didn't realize Shepard had your omni-address," I said slowly.

The smile slid off Solana's face. "She was worried. Don't be angry."

"I'm not angry," I replied.

Solana laughed. "You're angry," she insisted before growing serious, her mandibles pressed tight to her face. "Did he deserve it? The person you're upset about."

I dropped my eyes. "I'm not sure."

"Shepard said he betrayed you, Garrus. Not even Father would fault you for going after him. You know what loyalty means to a true turian," Solana reminded me.

It was my turn to laugh now, a sharp bark that was swallowed by the hum of machines in the battery. I was never a very good turian; I'd said it plenty of times by now.

"I know; I know," Solana continued, rolling her eyes. "I, um, called for another reason, too." She cleared her throat with uncharacteristic shyness "There's been a marital arrangement made for me. I thought you'd like to know."

My stomach sank, twisting as I tried to keep my reaction from my face, but her announcement was a reminder of the duties I hadn't shouldered. Turians were forbidden from very little. I could do drugs, practice a human religion, or even take a mistress or two—all things frowned upon by many other species—so long as I didn't neglect my responsibilities or prevent someone else from completing theirs. And while I hadn't been neglecting my responsibilities to the Hierarchy—I was helping Shepard save the galaxy, after all—I was of an age where I was considered lacking in my duty to my family. I'd neither married nor had children.

"That's...great, Sol," I answered.

My sister snorted. "You hate it; don't lie. But the negotiations are with the Victus family. They're respectable and want the Vakarian name to give them more weight in the Hierarchy. I've heard nice things about Tarquin; he's certainly calmer than his father, at least."

"He's also well known for his preference in men," I added.

She gave a dismissive wave of her fingers. "So we have kids, and we'll both take up a mistress. No one marries for love anymore," she scolded.

"I guess I just don't understand why Dad wouldn't…"

Solana cut me off before I could finish. "Wouldn't arrange something for you first?" she asked. Then she huffed out a sigh. "Because no matter your disagreements, he doesn't want to see you unhappy. That's all anyone in this family has wanted." She paused, closing her mouth and then taking a deep breath to start again. "That's all I wanted to call and say really. You could slaughter an entire station on your mission with Shepard, and we wouldn't care. Kill for the cause, right?"

"It's 'die for the cause,' I corrected.

She waved her hand again. "Semantics. What I'm saying is I want my brother there to be the witness for my marriage contract. Just come home, Garrus," she said earnestly.

Emotion welled up and tightened my throat, and Solana respectfully turned away. I set my jaw and cleared my throat.

"I'll try," I promised.

"And bring whatever extra money you've got lying around because, shit, I don't even want to know how you paid for Mom's stuff," Solana added.

"Good_bye_, Solana," I gritted out, and she smirked at me until I rolled my eyes "And, uh, thanks for calling."

"Anytime, brother."

She disconnected with a click, and I let my arm fall to my side again. The call had certainly made me feel _something_. Not better, per se, but less worthless. I pushed myself off the floor.

I wandered into the mess as it was just about time for the ground team's breakfast to be served. The tables were empty, however. One, because only those chosen by Jack to go on her mission would be bothered to get up this early, and two, because I was still earlier than everyone else.

Everyone but Dr. Chakwas. She held up a hand in greeting, running a scan of me with her omni-tool before I even had a chance to say hello. The elevator dinged its arrival and deposited Shepard and Miranda, though Shepard was too occupied staring at her companion to notice us yet. Miranda placed a hand on Shepard's arm to stop her, gesturing to something on the datapad she was reading off of, and Shepard never pushed her away, much to my surprise. I waited for Shepard to notice the hand—and she did—but she gave only passing consideration to Miranda's fingers pressed to her forearm until the other woman took them away herself, walking forward again and still talking.

"Strange how things change," Chakwas observed, stepping close to me as we watched Shepard and Miranda walk together on the other side of the mess. I nodded to the doctor, humming in response. Chakwas chuckled, and I glanced at her. "You know she came storming into my bedroom a couple nights ago, ranting about how she was going to quit. Let someone else deal with 'all the headstrong idiots' on this ship."

I grinned. "What did you say?"

"Oh, I didn't say anything," Chakwas replied, raising an eyebrow. "She used to come and say the same thing at least once a month before…" She trailed off, but I knew what she was referring to: Shepard's death. "She never means it."

"How can you be so sure?" I asked. That long conversation with Shepard had remained fresh in my mind. That she didn't know why she was doing this. It wouldn't be much of a stretch for her to really want to leave.

I followed Chakwas' eyes to where Shepard and Miranda had settled at one of the tables, two steaming coffees between them and a plate of food to each. I could hear Miranda now, still discussing something to do with cybernetics and a surgery they had planned for later today. Miranda took a sip from her coffee, and Shepard leaned over to tuck a fallen strand of black hair behind her ear. Miranda didn't so much as stutter in her continued explanation, and I eyed the two curiously.

"Because she cares," Chakwas answered finally. "Likely more than she wishes. Something the two of you have in common, I imagine."

Shepard eventually looked up, her face brightening when she saw me, and I instantly felt guilty for the resentment I'd been harboring. It wasn't really her fault I had nothing to show for two years of effort. It wasn't really her fault that she and her crazy missions had taken over my life, that I'd willingly submitted to them.

I didn't understand how I could both love and resent one person so much. Or why it had only just begun to bother me now.

I offered Shepard a weak wave, and the smile that had started to grow on her face wavered.

"It was a mistake to come here, Shepard," Jack bemoaned, scuffing her heels against the ground.

Our team was already on the landing pad—the only part of the building safe from the choking vegetation of Pragia's surface—and Shepard looked irritated on a mission for the first time. Not with Jack, I thought, but with the situation. Her eyes landed on the small Cerberus symbol on the entrance door, and if possible, her body got even stiffer.

"It's going to be fine, Jack," Shepard assured her, the calmness of her voice in opposition to the stress I could see in her body.

I hazarded a glance, too, at Miranda, expecting to see her icy indifference, but instead, her eyes darted around the landing pad, never settling in one place as they touched on every detail around us. Not that there was much to be interested in. The building we perched on was remarkably intact concrete constricted with trees, vines, and bushes with wide leaves, though not wide enough to catch the rain pouring down on our heads. The shuttle had pushed a gap in the overgrowth to get to the landing area, giving full license for the rain to flood in.

I leaned over to dump the water pooling the the scooped out section of the armor around my neck and glared at Shepard when she snickered off to the side.

"You know, this is one thing I missed about the first _Normandy_. We actually went to places that had real weather, not space stations or bombed wastelands," I commented.

"That's what you choose to be nostalgic about? The times I made us slog through mud, snow, and ice for resources?" Shepard replied. None of us wore helmets, so I could see her sarcastic arch of an eyebrow. It eased some of the tension in my chest from this morning.

"This is why I ensured the new _Normandy_ would be fully equipped with scavenging probes. Time spent on acquiring resources has been greatly decreased," Miranda added.

Shepard turned in her direction, and I was sure she noticed the same thing as me: that while the rest of us had exited the shuttle and quickly scouted the landing pad, Miranda had remained in the doorway, not a drop on her gleaming black armor. Shepard snorted, and her breath blew harsh into the hot, damp air.

"Heavens forbid you get in some mud, Princess," Shepard said dryly. Miranda frowned.

"Are we just gonna stand around here or what? Let's go already," Jack demanded.

Shepard acquiesced with a wave of her hand forward but crossed her arms and leaned back on her right leg as she looked pointedly in Miranda's direction. In fact, all three of us stared at her. I'd admit I was relishing a chance to see the Cerberus operative a little less polished than usual, but Miranda rolled her eyes and activated a biotic barrier around herself before stepping primly from the cover of the shuttle and walking towards the door. I gave a hum of disappointment, though, granted, it wasn't at a level the humans with me could hear.

"You know, I'm not sure why I never thought of that," Shepard mused as I fell into step next to her.

I leaned over to rid my suit of water again. "Or why you never offered it to your friends," I muttered to Shepard's smirk. "But I suppose there's a reason why she's the brains of the operation."

Shepard's punch hit me square in the shoulder. "You take that back," she demanded.

"Never," I declared, resisting the childish urge to stick my tongue out.

We took one step inside the abandoned Cerberus facility, and our flicker of humor died, leaving my mouth feeling dry and my throat parched. Jack was uncharacteristically quiet behind Shepard and me while Miranda was a few paces in front, surveying the dirty room with detached interest.

"I was never in this room," Jack said eventually. "I think they brought the new kids in through here."

I followed her eyes to the small crates and shuddered. All that time I spent hunting criminals on Omega when I could have been tracking down shit like this. But I'd been vain, taking on the big mercenary groups like that because I enjoyed needling them. If I'd taken on projects like this, continued to track people like Dr. Saleon or whichever sick asshole ran this facility, maybe I would have made a difference. Maybe I would mean something outside of Shepard's shadow.

Almost as if my resentment had lashed out physically, Shepard turned to look at me, green eyes burning with questions. I turned away.

Jack knocked her shoulder against Miranda's as she took the lead, jaw tight as she faced the next door and ignored Miranda's retaliatory sneer. The door screeched open on rusted tracks, and Jack led us down a ramp. There was a console at the bottom near the next door.

"Security checkpoint," Miranda offered. "Standard throughout all Cerberus facilities. It may still have surveillance footage."

Shepard nodded and walked forward to link EDI in through her omni-tool. "Mine away, EDI. Find what you can."

"The system was wiped the morning before the shutdown of the facility," EDI revealed. "However, it was not done properly, and data can still be retrieved. Also, it is worth noting that the kill switch—implemented to wipe all data in the event of a compromised facility—was disabled remotely the morning of the attack."

"The morning _before_ the shutdown?" I asked. "How could they possibly have known?"

"This is bullshit," Jack spat. "I started the riot that got me out of here. It wasn't preplanned."

"Something isn't adding up here," Shepard stated.

I looked at Miranda, who had gone very _very_ still.

Miranda

_I'm never wrong, Jacob. I thought you would've learned that by now_. I'd said that back on Lazarus Station. I'd believed the words when I said them because when it came to work, I didn't make mistakes. However, in every other aspect of my life...well, there was a reason every relationship I'd ever had had crashed and burned so spectacularly.

I'd been wholly mistaken about my fight with Shepard. She'd showed up at my door three hours and seventeen minutes into my anxious staring at a dark ceiling, hovering in the open doorway until I pulled back the covers and rolled to my side of the bed. Shepard had crossed the space wearily, sighing as she arranged the sheets around herself, and whispered a quiet 'sorry' before rolling to face away from me.

It was mildly tense the next day—things always were with Shepard—but coffee still appeared on my desk before breakfast, and when evening came, there was a seat left open at Shepard's left hand, her right already occupied by Garrus. I was at a loss for what it meant, probably because somewhere along the way Shepard had become less work and more personal. And I was bloody awful at personal.

However—great as Shepard's attempts were to ignore any confrontation that she couldn't shoot her way out of—I could feel the tension rear its head again as the shuttle touched down on Pragia, the moment there was a Cerberus logo visible. Shepard kept her distance from me as we moved through the facility, and her face stayed even and unreadable even as we passed crates Jack said children had been transported in.

We should have been in to place the bomb and out to blow it up in what I anticipated to be an hour maximum—less if Jack remained unemotional. I was sure she only requested me for her mission to prove her point about Cerberus, but I was calm, detached. This place was a rogue cell, nothing more, and certainly not operating under the sanction of the _real_ Cerberus.

Still, I'd told Shepard of my unease when I'd first read Jack's file, and that hadn't abated once I appeared here in person. There was something about the name, something about the project that hung at the edge of my memory. It had probably been mentioned in passing at some point or another, hardly important, but it bothered me all the same.

It bothered me even more once EDI analyzed the security console. _The kill switch was disabled remotely the morning of the attack._ Disabling the kill switch was the first thing I did when coming for an evaluation, just in case. Usually, if a project was underperforming, I would suggest a change in leadership. The current cell leader would either transfer to a project better suited for them or take the demotion under the new leader. Other times, if the leader were doing something questionable and had disobeyed their mission's directives...well, Cerberus didn't offer severance packages, which was why I disabled the kill switch in case they got any ideas.

Time of shutdown was logged as the year 2170. I would have been twenty, close to five years into my time with Cerberus. I would have been running evaluations by that time; it was entirely possible that..._No,_ I shoved the thought from my head. _My name wasn't on the file, and I would have remembered a place like this. _

A sinking sort of dread stirred, coiled and lazy, at the bottom of my stomach, building until it was the right time to strike. There was no possible way I had been here, yet I knew there was something that I was missing.

I followed the team into the next room. It was a wide space, and I could imagine the slick paint and clean lines that would have been there. The now broken and scattered tables would have lined up perpendicular to the wall, and the floors would have gleamed. It would have looked much like every other standard research facility I'd visited during my work with Cerberus, but this was the first time I shuddered when I saw the faded Cerberus logo stenciled on the far wall.

Jack slowed as we got closer to some sort of makeshift area, running her fingers along the top of one of the concrete dividers that were arranged into a ring. I cringed at the sound of her mesh and ceramic gloves dragging against the rough surface and the way she flexed her hand awkwardly afterward. I couldn't tell whether it was from memories or the novelty of wearing armor for the first time on a mission. Perhaps Shepard would know, but I hesitated to ask, even over a private comm link.

Surely, they thought I didn't care, and so did I until I stared at old bloodstains still crusted on the tile of the arena floor. Until I heard Jack speak of how the scientists pit her against the other students, the same students that had been shipped to the facility in crates and experimented on. If they survived the experiments, they met their end at the hands of a violent, drugged child. Jack grinned when she spoke of the narcotics they used to condition her to enjoy killing, and the dread in my stomach mingled with mild nausea at the flash of teeth in her smile—at the realization of so many dozens of abused children beaten bloody and killed a meter from where I now stood. Jack had been trained to _smile_ at that.

Then her eyes drifted over to me, and I saw the smile flicker and fade. Jack looked down at the bloodstain I'd been staring at, and when she glared at me again, I saw once again how _young_, how _small_ she was. The sharp, unlined planes of her face twisted into a scowl at my staring, but she couldn't know that, in this broken place, she looked more like a scared teenager than the violent woman who'd been fighting with me on the ship. I pushed away any pity that might have come with that thought. Jack wouldn't welcome it, especially from me.

"Just the lab now and then my cell," Jack growled, leading us away from the arena and down a hallway studded on either sides with rooms barely larger than a standard closet. I glanced in one to see a broken bunk bed and pressed my lips together with a tight jaw.

I smelled the antiseptic long before the door to the lab opened. It was my imagination, certainly; the chemicals should be long faded, but still, the cloying scent lingered in the air around me, harsh against the back of my throat. A chair was poised proudly in the center of the lab. The metal restraints still hung off the armrests, and a nearby instrument tray gleamed silver with still clean tools. The ghosts of restraints tightened on my own wrists, and I skirted around the area while the others spoke, nearing the computer terminal instead of dealing with the thought of how similar I was to the rogue _lab experiment_ stomping around in front of me.

The orb-like projection of EDI appeared on the computer console once I pressed my omni to it.

"I have completed the restoration of all retrievable data," EDI announced.

"Forget it, Cheerleader," Jack demanded. "There's nothing there I want to hear. I know what happened in this place. Now I'm going to destroy it." She stared at me with piercing, dark eyes. "I hope those Cerberus fuckers see the flames and realize I'm coming for them."

"There could be something useful," Shepard pushed. "Something that would explain how they knew to wipe the data."

Jack scowled over at Shepard, her twisted lips the same color as the bloodstains on the walls. Finally, she crossed her arms and nodded.

"There are only a few items of note. Playing audio log 1054," EDI provided.

"The latest iteration of PergNim went poorly. Subject One, Four, and Six died. No biotic change among the survivors. We lowered core temperatures of surviving subjects, but no biotically beneficial changes occurred. As a side effect, all subjects died. So we'll not try that on Zero.

Hopefully our supply of biotic potential candidates holds."

Lowering core temperatures as part of an experiment? Distasteful and unnecessary. Computer simulations were now so advanced that live experimentation was rendered almost redundant, only used in the very final stages of a new drug or procedure. That was how I was able to use new techniques and drugs on Shepard's reconstruction without long clinical trials and research. Going back to old fashioned methods was careless. It was unnecessary. It was _cruel_.

"He's lying," Jack exclaimed. "They weren't experimenting on the other kids to keep me safe. This wasn't because of me. I survived this place because I was stronger than them."

"It only makes sense to keep your main test subject alive," I commented. "The others would have been expendable."

"This isn't your fault, Jack. You can't change what they chose to do," Shepard said, holding up a hand to stop Jack before she could respond to me. "Anything else, EDI?"

"There is–" for a moment it almost sounded like EDI was hesitant, but that was ridiculous because EDI was a machine– "one other file that may be relevant. Some of the security footage was still intact."

Two figures showed on the projection, one wearing the distinct shape of a lab coat. The other man stopped the scientist with a touch to the shoulder.

"I got that file you asked for. From my contact in admin. We've been slotted for evaluation," he said quietly.

The eyebrows of the scientist furrowed down. "Not as bad as it could be. They're worried about Subject Zero's stability, but I'm sure we can _persuade_ her to cooperate for the visit."

"What a pleasant man," Garrus deadpanned darkly while Jack scowled openly at the projection.

"Does it say who they're sending?" the scientist continued. "I hope it's Operative Thorne again. He was a complete pushover last time."

"I hadn't read that far yet. Looks like it's…" the man trailed off as his eyes scanned something on the datapad he held. His next words came out in a croak. "...Operative Lawson."

Even on projection, the scientist's face went visibly pale while I struggled to keep mine even. _This_ was why I had a bad feeling about the facility: because I remembered it being mentioned when I'd inquired about my next mission.

I'd been told I would be sent to Pragia because the cell was underperforming, not because they were disobeying. The Illusive Man said the subject they were using couldn't be controlled, that she wouldn't follow orders. Nothing about her being a child. Nothing about experiments on other children. But then this facility had been shut down, and it wasn't mentioned to me again.

The dread in my stomach boiled with the sickening conclusion: the Illusive Man had known what they were doing and condoned it. Teltin Facility was well and truly Cerberus, the organization that should have been advancing the cause of humanity not—I looked again at the chair and restraints—needlessly destroying it.

"Pack your things. We leave tonight; tell only who you must," the scientist ordered on the projection. He typed something into his omni-tool and cursed, looking at the other man. "We may already be too late."

Three pairs of suspicious eyes blinked at me in the light of the console.

"You said you weren't involved in this cell," Shepard stated.

"I wasn't," I defended. "I was never sent here. They likely sent someone else once the children destroyed the facility."

"They were afraid of you," Jack growled quietly. "Why? What would you have done when you got here?"

We locked eyes, and I surprised myself with the venom in my voice. "I would have killed them all."

_Was that why the Illusive Man sent me without all the information? _I would have assumed the facility had been disobeying orders. I would have 'cleaned up' the entire cell. My reaction was so very _predictable_.

"I don't believe you," Jack spat. "You're just like them. You wouldn't have done a thing, and you sure as fuck wouldn't have protected me."

I scoffed, dry in the back of my throat. It felt better to be angry with her than to pity her, to see how wrong I was. To consider how things might have changed if I'd followed up with that changed mission instead of letting it drop. It was easier to hate her than to admit my own fault, to admit that I'd dedicated years of my life to an organization that could be so _wrong_.

"I would have sent you for rehabilitation. You're obviously a _mistake_, but it's possible you could have been a useful one."

Biotics rippled up Jack's arms. "I'm going to smear the walls with you, bitch!"

"I'd like to see you try," I challenged, lips twitching up in a sneer.

Jack was predictable when she was angry, and I'd spent hours evaluating her fighting style in order to best use her in the field. So when she threw her first warp, I caught it with one of my own, and they sparked off each other, exploding to throw us both backwards. My knee slammed against the ground, and I hissed as I pushed to my feet, throwing my arms forward to break Jack's shockwave to either side of me.

Jack skated forward on biotics and slammed a fist into my face before I had a chance to block. I tasted blood in my mouth as Jack shook her hand out triumphantly, and I lunged while she was still smiling and sank a blow into her stomach. She doubled over, even with part of the impact taken from the light armor she wore, and glared up at me in a sneer of pain and anger while her biotics reignited.

Jack kicked out but I caught it, that is, until she fused my hands to her shin with biotics and slammed her foot down, bringing me with it. I hit the ground hard but still managed to bring my arms up in time to block her from wrapping her hands around my throat. I threw an elbow into her face and flipped our positions, only pausing when I saw Jack's eyes go wide. Distinct reddish violet ribbons had sprouted to weave around my body, waiting for me to send them out.

Shepard's hand gripped my arm roughly and pulled me off Jack. I glared up at her from my new position on the ground. I only wanted to kick Jack's face in, not kill her: I wasn't going to actually _use_ reave.

"That's enough," Shepard ordered. "Is it out of your system yet?"

Jack jerked her head side to side in a 'no' and scrambled towards me once before before a biotic pulse from Shepard staggered her back.

"Good," Shepard said decidedly. She looked down at me. "Miranda, have the shuttle pilot take you back to the ship."

"Shepard, I–"

"That wasn't a suggestion," she said coldly.

Garrus appeared next to Shepard and offered a hand down to me. "I'll go back with her," Garrus said to my surprise, helping me to my feet. "EDI has already scanned this place and there's no one here. You don't need me either."

Shepard stared at him for a moment. "Whatever you want, Garrus," Shepard acquiesced, turning her back on us to join Jack.

The pilot looked at Garrus and me oddly when we requested to return without Shepard but was smart enough not to ask questions as Garrus and I stared at each other in an awkward silence. I stripped out of my armor quickly, storing it in one of the provided shuttle lockers to be retrieved later, and sighed when my skin finally began to cool. That planet had been the worst kind of hot and humid. Then I poked at my rapidly swelling lip with a sigh.

"That was stupid," Garrus said finally, looking comfortable in his armor despite the heat, which I envied. "Were you trying to pick a fight?"

"I—that place…" I trailed off into silence and cursed my incoherence. I raised my hand to the Cerberus logo on my uniform, nails hooking into the edge of the embroidery like I might be able to rip it off before looking straight into the turian's eyes. "I should have done more."

Garrus made a sympathetic choking noise in his throat, his face taking on a pinched look as he dropped his gaze to the floor of the shuttle.

"We all should have. The Alliance knew. The Council knew. But they never put any serious effort towards stopping Cerberus so long as they stayed mostly out of the way. I spent two years on Omega. Wasted my time with criminals that were never going to go away when I could have–" He looked up at me– "I could have done more too."

I curled my hands into tense fists as silence draped over us again, the shuttle rattling as it ascended into the atmosphere. Garrus stirred a few times, glancing over at me, but settled back into the quiet every time.

"Why did you ask to come back with me?" I asked him.

Garrus' gaze was sharp. "I know we don't have much in common, Miranda, but we're teammates. And teammates means that when one of us is sent back to the ship in shame, they don't go alone."

I gave a dry laugh. "Does this sort of thing happen often with Shepard?"

"I can't even tell you how many times Kaidan was sent back, left to 'guard our backs,' or sent on scouting missions because he couldn't learn to stop contradicting Shepard's orders," Garrus admitted with a laugh. "Poor guy."

"You mean Lieutenant Alenko?" I confirmed, stomach dropping slightly. "You're drawing comparisons between me and the soldier Shepard notoriously disliked? The man she sacrificed on Virmire?" I grimaced. "Wonderful."

Garrus' mandibles flicked out in shock before he laughed deep from his belly. "Kaidan. He was a good man; I miss him." Garrus shook his head, a touch of sorrow to his eyes. "But, anyway, this isn't even close to the same situation."

"It's not?" I asked.

There was something in the turian's cutting blue gaze that made me tense. Garrus shook his head and clasped his hands to his knees with a shrewd look.

"I saw you come off the elevator with Shepard this morning."

My teeth ground down as my head jerked back. That didn't have to mean anything; I could have been meeting with Shepard for any number of reasons. I thought back to this morning. I'd been apprehensive because of the mission, surprised that Jack had requested me, but also frustrated because the last minute request threw off my preparation time for the surgery I'd scheduled for Shepard this evening. I did not, however, remember us acting inappropriately, so perhaps Garrus was simply making assumptions about why I was in Shepard's cabin.

I straightened, preparing my lie, when Garrus held up a hand. "Please, I don't know _exactly_ what's going on, and, honestly, I don't want to. I was just making my point: it's not the same situation."

I let out the breath I held and nodded, relieved when I felt the shuttle rumble under my hands where they were clutching the edge of the seat. We were finally approaching the cargo bay.

"One thing I've learned about Shepard, though," Garrus continued. He paused as the shuttle touched down safely and the whirr of machinery began to wind down. "She can be really oblivious about certain things unless you spell it out for her."

So perhaps the turian had guessed more than I thought. I tried even harder to remember what had happened this morning. I'd talked about the surgery, had to force myself to concentrate because Shepard was unusually tactile: brushing her fingers against mine when she handed me my coffee, tucking my hair back for me, the way she sat as close as she could without touching me.

_Oh. Well, of course he's misunderstood. _Shepard was simply more comfortable with me now that we shared a bed. In fact, I'd found research that showed the benefits of sleeping with a partner, including improved stress and anxiety levels, and close quarters was bound to end in some sort of trust between us. It didn't mean Shepard had those kinds of feelings for me.

"Like how she has no idea that you're angry with her," I pointed out, sidestepping his insinuations.

Garrus scoffed at me and stood to open the shuttle door.

"Yes, just like that," he agreed.

We exited the shuttle together but both stopped to listen when the shuttle comm crackled to life behind us.

"We're ready for pickup," Shepard said to the pilot. Then before she shut the comm off I heard, "Jack stop playing with that detonator for fucks' sake. You're going to accidentally blow us up."

The comm clicked off, and Garrus and I shared a silent look of worried amusement. The pilot checked over his shoulder to ensure we were off before hitting a button to close the shuttle door. He threw a salute that I saw through the front windshield as the vehicle lifted off.

Garrus and I stepped safely behind the environmental shield before the cargo doors opened to the open vacuum of space.

"I'll wait here for them," I stated, scouting a crate for me to perch on.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

I raised an eyebrow at him, at the question like he thought that I was going to run from this. I absolutely refused to. I should have done more before, but that didn't stop me from still doing something now. I may have been _wrong_ but I was not _afraid_. Even if I did despise that tattooed miscreant.

"Shepard'll find me anyway. Might as well not get comfortable in my office," I replied.

Garrus smirked. "You know her well. I'll just get out of the way then."

"Coward," I muttered under my breath.

I heard Garrus chuckle as he got onto the elevator.

I sat and studied my nails. I rehearsed what I was going to say, but it all felt contrived, hollow. More so when I looked down at my uniform and still saw the Cerberus logo sitting there, not torn off like I'd wished to do on the shuttle.

So when the shuttle reappeared and Jack and Shepard exited it, both warily watching me approach, only two words came out of my mouth. Or three if you counted the contraction.

"I'm sorry."

It was the only sentence I'd rehearsed that sounded meaningful, but said out loud, it wasn't enough, especially as Shepard's eyes widened almost comically at the sound. The commander made a valiant effort towards saying nothing, however, and crossed to a bench to start stripping out of her armor after grabbing pants and her hoodie to put over her tight underarmor suit. I pulled my attention away from her and looked straight at Jack—a woman not much older than my sister who had gone through hell in a Cerberus facility that was now hopefully a smoldering ruin.

"You are a mistake–" Jack's fists curled, but I continued before she could move– "a grave mistake in judgement on the part of Cerberus. Teltin facility never should have existed."

A ghost of a thought followed that I didn't say aloud: _Cerberus never should have existed._

"I'm sure an apology means nothing from me. But for now, I'm the highest ranking Cerberus officer on this ship–" _and likely the only one she'll ever meet that she doesn't kill outright_– "and it was wrong. What they did to you. So, I'm sorry."

I thought I'd been doing good, working for the betterment of humanity, but now I couldn't recall one instance where Cerberus had made a significant positive influence. I'd overlooked the horrible things I was asked to do because the end result was hidden under 'the greater good.'

Making sacrifices for the greater good was one thing. What Cerberus was doing was something else entirely.

However, leaving Cerberus was more than quitting a job; it was quitting a life, and the Illusive Man would be sure to send agents after me, once he learned. _He might even send Kai Leng_. I shuddered at the thought. I'd known when I'd signed on that it would be for life, had welcomed the certainty and direction that the commitment had provided. Now it was a chain on my ankle, yanking tight.

"I really just wanted to punch you in the face again, Cheerleader. And you couldn't even give me that," Jack growled.

She spun on her heel and prowled off, shoulders slightly slumped, taking the shortcut to her space in Engineering instead of bothering with the elevator. Shepard approached me slowly.

"The words 'I'm sorry' just crossed your lips. Twice," Shepard observed. Her eyebrows furrowed. "And neither one was directed at me."

I scoffed at her with a roll of my eyes and walked to hit the button that would call the elevator.

"Hey, I was joking," Shepard protested jogging up behind me and slipped into the elevator before the doors could close.

"You sent me back to the ship," I pointed out, staring at the numbers as they indicated we were changing decks. I was still angry. At her, at the Illusive Man, at myself.

"Well, you were a bit out of control, so I think that was warranted," Shepard said.

The doors opened with a ding, and I was one step through the door when Shepard reached for my wrist.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"My office," I answered sharply. "Where else?"

Shepard looked taken aback, hurt flashing across her face as she dropped her hold on my wrist. I made to continue but shot a hand out to hold the door when I heard her sigh. I closed my eyes briefly.

"You may come with me if you wish," I offered.

She did, following me through the doors of my office and shutting them behind us. I walked around my desk, glanced to my left, and caught sight of my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I saw the way my hair was slightly ruffled, my lip slightly swollen. I also saw the damning Cerberus symbol sitting right over my heart, but this time I wasn't on a shuttle with Garrus or in the middle of the cargo bay.

I ripped my uniform top over my head and heard Shepard give a startled squeak behind me. I tossed the garment to the ground, not bothering to put it in the hamper where I would have usually, and riffled through my closet to find something—anything—else to wear that wouldn't mark me as Cerberus. Not today. Not anymore.

"Miranda…"

"You're ecstatic, I'm sure," I interrupted dryly. "How long have you been waiting to tell me 'I told you so'?"

"I never thought it would happen, actually. Definitely never imagined you apologizing to Jack," Shepard admitted. She sighed at my glare and stopped my frantic search through my closet—that had basically nothing in it, I might add—by grabbing my hand like it was nothing, like this was just something we _did _now. My heart squeezed at the same time she squeezed my fingers. "Look, I know I've been very vocal about my dislike of Cerberus. But I don't blame you. You were trying to get away from your father and…"

"Don't you dare," I stopped her. Her eyebrows shot up at my tone, and I jerked my hand away so hard that Shepard's arm flung out awkwardly as she tried to hold on. "I am not some _victim_. You don't get to use my past to justify this. My father hurt me, Shepard, but he didn't break me. I'm my own person, and I make my own choices." I sucked in a shuddering breath. "I chose this."

"Miranda." This time the way she said my name was better, had lost that broken, pitying tone she'd started with. "I wasn't trying to…" She stopped, her nose wrinkling in frustration "You have to admit it influenced you."

I acquiesced with a slight nod. "Of course my upbringing influenced me. But if anything, it should have warned me away. I made my bed," I muttered angrily, using the old saying. "Now I have to lie in it."

"Well," Shepard said with a grin, eyes darting to the bed we both stood by. "At least you won't be sleeping in it alone."

The joke fell slightly flat, but I still breathed out in something akin to a laugh. Still, it wasn't enough to dislodge my darkened disposition as I sank to a seat on my bed.

"I have to leave Cerberus," I said, almost in a whisper, looking up through my lashes as the smile slid off Shepard's face, replaced by concern. But she shouldn't be. Not really. I'd already decided to leave, had been keeping one foot out of the door since the incident with my father. I suppose this was simply a needed last push.

Shepard pressed her lips together and began unzipping the front of her N7 hoodie. She shrugged it off leaving her in the thin, body hugging material of her underarmor suit. My eyes were drawn to the way it stretched across her stomach with the movement, and when I looked up, Shepard was smirking at me. She held the jacket out towards me, going so far as to guide one of my arms into the proper slot when I didn't take it from her.

When it was on, Shepard zipped the jacket for me and smoothed the material along my shoulders. I raised an eyebrow.

"What exactly does this accomplish? Simply giving me a new logo doesn't change things," I remarked.

"For one, I'm much more focused when you're wearing a top," Shepard answered. I flushed at the look in her eyes before shaking it off, reminding myself not to read into things. She sat down next to me, her knee brushing briefly against mine. "You said like to know where you fit, where your place is. You like labels. So I'm letting you have mine," Shepard continued. "Look, this doesn't change our mission. And we can work out everything else later, because with me—_us_," she corrected, waving around to the rest of the ship, "—is where you belong. This is your place."

I took a deep breath through my nose, fighting the emotion that was threatening to close my throat and keep me from responding. But even when I managed, my voice was still hoarse.

"Thank you, Shepard."

The corners of her eyes crinkled as she smiled, and my heart fluttered in response. Then Shepard placed her arms behind herself on the bed and pushed backwards to hop fully on the bed, settling herself on the pillows. Shepard reached into one of the pockets on her pants and tossed me a protein bar, then patted the place on the bed next to her.

"Eat that," she ordered. "And come on."

She patted the bed again.

"Shepard, it's barely past noon," I stated. I looked at my computer. "I still have...I should…"

"_We_ are going to relax. Well, mostly you, because at some point, I have to go check in on Jack. But until then, I am going to read and you are going to do something besides work next to me," she said. "One afternoon of rest. It's what people do. Or so I've heard."

I begrudgingly crawled onto my spot next to her and laid down, tearing open the protein bar once I was sure that Shepard had given me one of the fruity ones and not a chocolate covered one. I took a bite and stared at the ceiling while I chewed, though much as I tried, I couldn't find this doing _nothing_ as any sort of relaxing. I started reviewing my plan for Shepard's surgery later instead, and after a few minutes, Shepard laughed.

"I can practically feel you thinking from here," Shepard teased with a roll of her eyes.

Shepard reached in the bedside table to grab a datapad like the one she was reading on before tossing it to land on my stomach. I gasped at the impact and frowned up to where she was propped up on pillows. But then Shepard's fingers found their way into my hair, scratching against my scalp, and I closed my eyes and shivered.

It was moments like this that I wondered if she knew the effect she had on me, these small touches that were becoming more common since we'd begun occupying the same bed. I wondered if she knew that my heart was racing and my face felt hot. Against all reason, I wondered if she did it on purpose.

I opened my eyes to see Shepard's emerald ones already staring down at me. She quickly looked back at her book.

"I feel ridiculous," I declared.

Shepard chuckled, then murmured lowly, "Welcome to the _Normandy_, Lawson."

Funny how I didn't mind my last name when she said it like that.

* * *

**Just kiss already, for fucks' sake. **

**Hope everyone likes the update! I know a lot of you were probably expecting there to be a lot more blowback after that last fight between Shepard and Miranda, but I thought this was a little more true to the characters. My Shepard is volatile, but she's come a long way with Miranda, too far to instantly turn on her over a little spat. Besides, who needs pride when it keeps you from sleeping next to Miranda Lawson? **

**Garrus, too, is being taken in a direction I didn't originally expect to write. I just don't see him as feeling overly guilty about Sidonis, but I do see him feeling like shit that he has very little to show for two years of work. And here his best friend was risen from the dead to save the galaxy. Anyone would be a little jealous. **

**I would love to hear what you all think! Even short comments are great!**


	24. We Don't Need Luck

**Chapter 24: We Don't Need Luck**

Miranda

_Just a bit further. You can do this. Keep going._

At that point, it was hard to tell whether the voice floating in my head was Samara or simply my own encouraging me to continue to put one foot in front of the others as I sprinted on the treadmill. Sweat trickled down my back and stung my eyes when beads dropped from my forehead. I could taste the salt on my lips.

I looked longingly at the rest of the team performing simple drills in the combat simulator.

_Keep going._

That time the voice was definitely Samara's. I glared at her and instantly regretted the waste of energy involved with lifting my chin, but I at least saw that Samara's face was twisted with my discomfort as I continued into my tenth mile. It was only fair, after all, yet she only had to bear the pain, push it out of her mind. I had to force my body into still moving forward.

It had been a bloody long time since I'd run this much.

_I heard about your spectacle on Pragia. That you were able to control reave even in anger speaks well of you. _

There was a flash of a memory in my head, a strong one, slipping through the connection between Samara and myself before she had a chance to control it. A young asari—very young, teenager kind of young, the memory supplied—played with model spaceships, the bodies bobbing in the air with the lift of her biotics. _Morinth_, the name came to me. Morinth scowled when another child ran up and grabbed a plane with a squeal of glee, darting away quickly with her prize. Then the child screamed for an altogether different reason as she dropped to the ground in pain, red-violet ribbons constricting around her body.

Samara's hand felt as if it were my own when, suddenly, we were across the yard, grabbing Morinth by the arm and hauling her away from the other child. _Her sister. _I shivered at the satisfaction in Morinth's eyes when she looked up at me, at Samara, at her own _mother_.

The memory was ripped away from me, and my feet stumbled against each other on the treadmill for a few seconds before I regained my rhythm, now uncomfortable for an entirely different reason. Samara looked back at me steadily, and I pushed onward, complying with our unspoken agreement to not address knowledge we gained by accident over the meld. I was certainly grateful for the discretion given that I'd slipped up far more than Samara in our few training sessions, not as used to guarding my mind as she was.

_Now,_ Samara ordered from in front of me. _Attack. _

I gathered my biotics and flung an arm out, the same red-violet ribbons that had been in Samara's memory springing out in the direction I pointed. I felt for her blood vessels, starting with her arms as we'd practiced, while continuing to move my feet. It was just the slight tingling at first, and I didn't push it as I moved my biotics to encompass her legs as well.

My legs faltered on the treadmill as my attention strayed away from them, and I reacted by lashing out with the biotics I already had engaged. Samara gave a yelp of pain, and white hot flames engulfed my body as it careened over the meld. My chin hit the treadmill display before the still moving belt flung me off the machine and into the wall behind me.

I groaned, tasting blood in my mouth and steel on my tongue where my face pressed to the floor.

"Watching that never gets old," Jack quipped from across the room with a grin as I slowly pushed my torso upright with palms raw from the impact.

The training program simulated the sound of a gun firing, then blared the alarm of a team member down. An 'X' appeared over Jack's name on the display.

"One less to worry about!" Garrus called, his head poking up from a balcony (which was really a holographic balcony projected on some stacked cargo). "Stop getting distracted, Jack."

"I don't blame her. Such a lovely distraction," Kasumi purred, eyes dragging across me, and I realized that my skid across the floor had twisted my training tank up to my chest, exposing the bottom of my sports bra and the entire expanse of my sweat-covered stomach. I yanked the material down with a scowl.

"Fucking Christ," Zaeed exclaimed, docking his gun upright against his shoulder. "Is every woman on this ship gay?"

"If by gay you mean that none of us are going to fuck your ugly ass, then yes," Jack sneered.

Zaeed roared with laugher just as Shepard snapped, "Focus, you three. We aren't done yet."

Shepard strode over after they returned to the drill, offering a hand to help me off the floor. I stared at the strong, slender fingers of her proffered hand for a moment too long, and Shepard dropped it back to her side, eyebrows furrowing.

She looked between Samara and myself in confusion as Samara cleared her throat louder than necessary, which, admittedly, I deserved since I'd been accidentally assaulting her over our meld all morning. All because Shepard had gravitated to my side of the bed for the first time since we'd formally agreed on our arrangement a week ago, and I'd woken with her breath in my hair and her leg thrown over mine. She'd curled around me so her chin nuzzled into the back of my shoulder, and just the memory of that warmth, that pure pleasure of waking up to _Shepard_ kept popping up at the most inopportune times, dragging at my concentration.

Like now. I looked to my right, and _bloody hell, _Samara was smiling at me because of course the one thing I hadn't perfected yet was keeping my thoughts shielded. Bloody asari and their melds. Shepard just stared at the two of us.

I raised my arm this time, flicking my wrist in a quick circle to indicate I was ready for her to help me up now. Shepard smirked in amusement at the motion before taking my hand and pulling me to my feet. Her touch lingered on my forearm before stepping away, igniting a responding flutter of warm that spread to my chest.

Shepard ordered everyone back to their positions as I righted myself and let her go, but not without a last parting glance for me, something strange and indecipherable flickering in her eyes.

"Come," Samara ordered, sinking into a seated position as her biotics lifted her up. "We'll finish with meditation."

I hastened to follow her, sighing in relief when she broke the meld and released my mind to my own thoughts. I floated over to 'sit' across from Samara, but my biotics wavered when a large weight dropped to the ground next to me. The impact shuddered across the cargo bay.

"Grunt," I said, arching an eyebrow. "What are you doing?"

"I'm meditating," he stated sagely, shutting his eyes pointedly.

"Likely the first krogan ever to do so," I commented dryly.

Grunt cracked one eye open to glare at me before shutting it again in a huff. He fidgeted in place, looking uncomfortable in his attempts to mediate.

"Shepard said I needed to cool off," Grunt explained gruffly.

"Ah," I accepted.

The krogan had been exceptionally irritated as of late, and I could find no medical reason for it. His change in attitude was the reason we were currently hurtling through space to Tuchanka, though officially it was because I'd moved Mordin's request—which was conveniently on the krogan homeworld—to the top of the list. I could ask the krogan about Grunt's condition while Shepard helped Mordin find a missing assistant of his.

"Concentrate," Samara scolded us. "The point of the exercise is control."

"I have excellent control," I retorted. Wasn't that the very reason Samara had agreed to teach me?

"Your focus is too selective," Samara explained. She waved to the room at large. Simulated explosions sounded around us as the rest of the team continued their imagined assault, the air filled with heavy breathing mixed with the horrid rasping of Reaper husks. "I have no doubt that I could place a computer in front of you here and you would write your reports without a single glance about you. You have a single minded focus that is impressive, and typically that focus is helpful when learning reave."

I raised an eyebrow. "But?"

Samara gave a small smile. "You have yet to effect a reave on the whole body without losing intensity in one of its parts. You must learn to focus on everything, while also not focusing on one thing too much. It is difficult for you."

I bristled. "It is not difficult; it is simply new."

"You forget I have melded with you," Samara countered with a slight sigh. She closed her eyes again, falling back into the meditation. "It is not so easy to lie to me as it is to lie to yourself."

I looked to see Grunt grinning at me, shrugging when I frowned, and I slammed my eyes closed again, determined to focus the way Samara instructed. Still, same as earlier, I found my attention snagged by the movement of Grunt's armor when he fidgeted or by heavy wallop of biotics as Jack slung her powers around the room, and I had to push my brain to take in everything once more. Feet slapping against the metal floor, Jacob rolling into cover, the slight tinkling noise Kasumi's tactical cloak made when it engaged, Grunt's armor: I was supposed to hold them all in my mind at once.

I gritted my teeth when I inevitably lost track, huffing through my nose.

"Meditation does not require so much energy," Samara said, serenely.

"It does for me," I rejoined, frustrated.

Samara laughed: a small, soft noise. "You do not know how to relax. It is the same in battle."

"I hardly see why I should be relaxed when I'm being shot at," I replied.

"No, but you should learn to be calm," Samara answered. "Otherwise…"

I felt an omni-blade press at my throat, and I gasped in surprise, eyes flying open. Samara's voice was at my ear.

"...you miss the obvious."

_Damn it_, I swore as Samara floated away, hovering back in front of me again. Her eyes were still closed, but a small smile graced her features. I scowled at her.

"Jack is not the only one easily distracted today," Samara stated eventually. "It is unlike you."

Was I? Well, it wasn't every day we were told that Cerberus had tracked down a useable IFF, or so the Illusive Man believed. Once we had that, we would be able to proceed to our final goal: attacking the Collector Base and completing—or failing—our mission. However, Shepard's announcement that we were getting so close to the end, well, prompted several requests from team members.

We'd just spent two days docked on the Citadel: for last upgrades to the _Normandy_ and for Thane's request to handle a personal matter. The drell had asked for the stop but refused any help. That is, until Shepard had been called down to the precinct to bail him out of a jail cell. Yet, Thane had arrived back on the ship before push off, and I gathered by his calm that his business had otherwise gone well.

I didn't pry any further, had no real need to. He'd helped me escape from a bloody trunk, so if he wished to mysteriously disappear for two days on 'business' he was welcome to. Besides, I would find out the truth in Shepard's report. When she decided to send it.

Tali had officially requested a stop by the Flotilla. The quarian had been on edge for days, snapping at simple comments, so presumably whatever business she had there was important. Then there was Mordin asking for us to rescue his assistant who'd been kidnapped by krogan, and finding a diagnosis for Grunt while we were on the planet. Even Samara had mentioned that she had a matter to discuss.

So, yes, naturally, work had been distracting.

Samara gave me a knowing look when my gaze also drifted over to Shepard because, admittedly, the commander was also part of my distraction, something the asari matron had seen first-hand through my thoughts. I'd been almost _relieved_ by the long list of things to be done before retrieving the Reaper IFF, that we still had more time, when I should have been irritated that personal requests were keeping us from our final goal.

However, I simply couldn't find it in myself to be irritated, not when I longed for more mornings like the one I'd woken to today, with Shepard sleeping peacefully with me, her body folded around mine. She'd kept her distance every other night—it was a professional arrangement, after all—so I wasn't sure what had changed, only that I didn't mind it at all.

It was confusing: how my body betrayed me around her. Sex was one thing, easy even. The last time I'd woken up to her draped across me, I'd definitely wanted to have sex with her. It was the number one thing on my mind: thoughts of kissing my way down and waking her with my mouth. I bit my lip at the idea before shaking my head. But this morning, _this _morning had been different. It wasn't sexual. It was...safe, soothing, and I'd wanted to stay even as I'd scrambled out of the bed so Shepard wouldn't know.

I sighed as the ship shuddered underneath us.

"We've reached Tuchanka," Joker announced over the ship's speakers. "It's...just as ugly from orbit."

Grunt snorted, and Shepard called a halt to the practice. Samara and I dropped to our feet and joined the group that gathered around Shepard for orders.

"Food first, then gear up. Biotics eat a double," Shepard ordered. Her eyes flickered to me. "No exceptions."

Shepard waited as Grunt and Jack jostled their way onto the first elevator up with Zaeed, Mordin, and Thane while Garrus, Tali, and Samara waited for the next one. Kasumi was already out of sight, and Jacob marched off to use a ladder instead of waiting for the elevator.

"I have a bad feeling about today," Shepard muttered, squeezing my shoulder as we joined the three waiting for the elevator.

"No offense to the krogan, but I think everyone gets a bad feeling about landing on Tuchanka," Garrus quipped from the front.

"I'm certain everything will be fine, Commander," I added.

"Well, if _you're_ certain," Shepard replied, one corner of her mouth curling up. "I guess there's nothing to worry about."

XXXX

Garrus

Tali shuffled out from under the truck, poking an arm out just enough to wave for my attention.

"Could you hand me the–?"

I held the wrench out that Tali was looking for, and she patted my foot, the only part she could reach from her position, in thanks.

"Read my mind," she said, scooting back under.

I smiled at the gesture and wondered if she was smiling too, her face blocked not only by the shuttle but by the ever present visor of her environmental suit. I settled myself back against the large tire of the tomkah truck and wiped in futile frustration at the dust settling on my armor before returning to staring blankly at the shattered concrete of the wall in front of me. Metal clicks and squeals emanating from the underside of the truck provided the soundtrack for my thoughts.

Krogan looked at me, a turian, with suspicion as they walked by. A varren had even taken a snap at me earlier. Which was uncalled for, really. At least Wrex, now the Urdnot clan leader here on Tuchanka, had been warm enough when he'd greeted us.

"How do you even know how to fix this?" I inquired, rolling my head to watch Tali's feet wave back and forth as she worked.

"I'm a quarian. Don't you know? If it's mechanical and useful, we can figure out how to work it," she quipped.

I rolled my eyes even though she couldn't see. "Yes, but that krogan mechanic seemed perfectly capable."

"He wanted us to find another combustion manifold," Tali scoffed, her words muffled under the vehicle. "It's not like there's an unlimited number of trucks, and there's no time to go searching through scrap metal. I refuse to risk flying a Cerberus shuttle on this planet with trigger-happy krogan."

"Not to mention Shepard looked at you and said 'fix it.' Spirits forbid you ever admit you can't fix something," I replied.

Tali used her feet to drag herself forward, the wheeled board she lay upon crunching with the gravel. Her head poked out from the underside.

"I _can_ fix this. You wait," Tali declared.

"You remember I did all of the work on the old _Normandy_'s Mako? I could give you a hand?" I offered.

Tali was already back under the truck when she answered, "I do not _need_ your help, Garrus." Rusted metal screamed at her manipulations, and then she continued, "But thank you for the offer."

I cracked a smile, shaking my head fondly. "Alright then. Let me know when you're done."

My head shot up at the sound of others approaching.

"I would like to go on record as being completely opposed to this idea," Shepard's growl echoed around the corner, followed by the woman herself with Miranda at her right elbow.

"Grunt made the decision," Miranda stated. She jerked to a stop as Shepard stopped walking and whirled to face her. Shepard's eyes flashed.

"You volunteered yourself, and Grunt adores you. Of course he named you as his krantt," Shepard seethed.

I stayed still and heard Tali stop her work on the truck, both of us eavesdropping intently while we were still unnoticed by the commander and her XO. We'd discovered Grunt's irritable behavior had been facilitated by a form of krogan puberty, not an illness, and now, he was preparing to undergo his Rite of Passage. Krogan were allowed to bring their krantt, otherwise known as trusted allies, into battle with them, and while the number of allies allowed wasn't specified, the unspoken rule was to only bring two. Young krogan weren't expected to have developed a large krantt yet.

The only issue being that Grunt hadn't chosen Shepard as part of his krantt.

"I doubt there's anything this Rite could throw at us that Grunt, Jack, and I can't handle. It will be fine," Miranda said.

"That's not the point. Damn it." Shepard blew a long breath out. "I wouldn't have chosen Jack. She's hardly spoken to you since Pragia. Who knows if she'll have your back in there," Shepard argued.

Miranda was silent for a long moment, the tension between the two of them visible even at a distance. "So what are you suggesting?" Miranda asked, her voice so low I had to strain to hear the words at all. "If you have an alternative, I'd love to hear it."

"Ask Grunt if he'll reconsider," Shepard answered.

Miranda's lips twitched. "By all means, if you don't believe we can do this, feel free to ask Grunt yourself," she replied coldly.

"Ouch," I whispered to Tali as Shepard flinched in response to Miranda's words.

"Shepard walked right into that one," Tali replied with a shake of her head as she rolled back under the vehicle. "It's actually kind of painful to watch."

Their conversation was cut short when Wrex barreled around the corner, followed by Grunt, who was so eager he was practically bouncing.

"It's almost time to drive out to the proving grounds," Wrex informed them. His sharp eyes found Tali and me over Shepard's shoulder.

My eyes widened as Shepard turned and followed his gaze to see Tali and me, a grimace stretching across her face as she realized we were within earshot. Tali rolled out from the underside of the truck to hop to her feet and lead the way over to the rest of the group.

"Fixed it," Tali announced as we joined them.

"Grunt," Shepard tried one last time, with barely an acknowledgement to Tali. "I don't understand why you don't want me with you. Am I not your commander?"

Grunt was silent for a moment. He nodded. "This is _my _Rite. My…test. And you are not meant to be a follower. You are a leader."

"Shepard," I inserted, grabbing her attention when it looked like she was ready to argue again. How much her influence had begun to affect others was not something Shepard fully realized, but I knew what it felt like. Viscerally. "It will mean more if your name is unattached to his accomplishment."

It was like I'd physically slapped her, she recoiled so sharply, but Miranda was already prepared at her side, moving with the same kind of supportive intuition that she showed on the battlefield, like with a well-placed barrier to soften the blow.

"Grunt wants to lead his own Rite. I hardly see why that would be insulting," Miranda interjected. Right, so perhaps she didn't soften the blow, but she did deflect it. Little difference, really.

"And how is it any different by having you on the team? He's been on Team Black with you as his leader," Shepard pointed out.

"Enough!" Grunt interrupted, straightening into his full height. "This is _my_ decision."

His decision, his _choice_. Shepard stilled at the words, maybe feeling the same weight I was, the weight of Shepard saying, "I won't make this decision for you" less than a week ago. She exhaled through her nose and set her mouth. Then her hand darted out and hooked onto the lip of Grunt's chest plate, and Shepard yanked him down so close to her face that the krogan let out a low grumble of a growl.

"Second lesson outside of the tank," Shepard growled right back. "Your team is always more important than you." She leaned in even closer, letting her voice drop lower, but that didn't matter because we'd all gone so quiet in anticipation that I could hear the creaking exhale of Tali's suit. "Keep them alive, Grunt."

"I will," Grunt swore.

"Then good luck," Shepard finished, taking a step back, though she didn't look any happier than before.

"We don't need luck," Grunt declared, slamming his fists together.

Wrex laughed, breaking the slight tension. "Shepard does. The family of the whelp buys the first round during the festivities. Get your credit chit ready, Shepard."

"Curse this day into a black hole," Shepard murmured under her breath, waving her hand forward at the rest of us and stalking off to hop in the truck.

XXXX

The truck dropped us off at a large arena, the buildings broken and dilapidated, crumbling into the ground. But the majority of the ring was still standing, and an imposing tower still stood tall at the far end. Wrex led Shepard and the rest of us to the side of this tower where stone steps took us into a large seating area, faced out to the arena.

The whole ground crew had come to watch, even Samara and Thane, who'd seemed more comfortable on the ship than the harsh surface of Tuchanka. Zaeed sat a ways away with a krogan he'd befriended over alcohol, and Mordin hovered close to Shepard and, by extension, myself and Tali. For good reason, at least: the krogan surrounding us watched him like a hawk. Samara, Thane, and Kasumi made themselves comfortable on the other side of Tali. The thrum of excitement pulsed through us all, all but Jacob, who stared down at the area with a pinched look on his face from the back of the group.

Krogan filtered in in large crowds every single one decked out in full armor, guns gleaming in the sunlight on every hip and shoulder. Shepard drummed her fingers against the casing of the helmet in her lap, and I eyed the aging shield generator set up in front of the seats, the hum of it interrupted by a spontaneous pop every few seconds.

"The shield will hold," Wrex said gruffly, noting where my attention had gone. "We have our gear for the end. Have to go wrangle...some things." He paused and cocked his head to the side, grinning. "Usually. Not during my Rite though."

"Yes, we know, Wrex. You're the best krogan to ever krogan. We get it," Shepard quipped, rolling her eyes.

Wrex pointed a finger at her. "And don't you forget it. Just because you have some tank-bred hot shot now doesn't mean you'll ever replace me."

"Shut up. No one is being replaced. You were busy. Now tell me what the fuck is going to happen in this Rite. Why won't anyone talk about it?" Shepard demanded.

"It's not a trial if you know what's going to happen. You only get to watch the Rite after you've completed you own. Or, well, unless you aren't a krogan and you promise to keep your big mouth shut," Wrex grunted. He narrowed his eyes at Tali.

"Hey!" she exclaimed, crossing her arms. "I have no idea why everyone thinks I can't keep a secret."

"So that time you told everyone on the ship that I only had 3 testicles? That was you keeping a secret?" Wrex growled.

Tali had the decency to dip her head in shame. "I only told Garrus…"

Now it was my turn to scowl at Tali when Wrex's glare redirected to me. I held my hands in front of me to signal my surrender, and luckily, I was saved by the screeching of a microphone clicking on. A krogan I recognized as the shaman we'd spoken to earlier about Grunt stepped forward, holding his omni-tool at face height.

"Krogan and guests, it is time for the Rite to begin. We have gathered here to test the mettle of the one known as Grunt. Should he survive, he will be known to us as Urdnot Grunt," the shaman began. "There are three rounds, and you must adapt to each to prove you are worthy. If you are ready, we will begin."

Grunt let out a roar to show he was prepared, while Miranda simply loosed her gun from her hip, looking bored. Which was really just her usual face when she was forced to deal with other people, not to mention a large crowd. Jack grinned maniacally and hoisted her shotgun in the air, her yell mixing with Grunt's roar.

"Very well. All that's left is for you to–"

He paused and the krogan in the crowd stood as one, slamming their feet into the stone four times as they roared as one:

"Hit. The. Key. Stone!"

Grunt punched the keystone with gusto, and a voice played out over the intercom.

"First, the krogan conquered Tuchanka...and mastered a natural world only we are fit to hold!"

Growling came from a far corner, and we watched as a large pack of varren spilled from an enormous tunnel built into the side of the arena. The three moved forward as one, not bothering with cover when faced with a foe that fought only with tooth and claw. Grunt took the lead barreling through and scattering the beasts out of their loose formation, followed by a biotic shockwave courtesy of Jack. One varren made a lucky lunge onto the krogan's back but was unceremoniously yanked off with a pull from Miranda.

Jack shot the same varren full out of the arena with a swing of her arm and a burst of power. I could imagine the scowl Miranda's helmet hid.

Shepard turned to me, disbelief written over her face, before rolling her eyes fondly. "She's fucking showing off. In the middle of a fight," she groused.

Jack's little display had dissolved into the two biotics trying to outdo the other, turning the Rite into a temporary game of biotic ball. Grunt assisted enthusiastically, grappling the varren by their back legs and tossing them into the air for Miranda or Jack to slam them for a home run. They looked like they were having...fun together. Jack even clasped Miranda by the shoulder when she got a particularly good hit, that is, until she remembered herself and removed the hand awkwardly.

Wrex squinted down at the arena. "Where'd you even get that one?" he asked, pointing a giant finger down.

"Jack? The one with the tattoos?" Wrex nodded. "Prison," Shepard answered with a shrug.

"Don't know why I asked, honestly," he replied, with a shake of his head.

The second round began as Grunt, Miranda, and Jack regrouped, once again letting Grunt slam a fist into the keystone to start. This wave consisted of fire-breathing klixen, and the team fought more seriously than they had with the varren.

"And that one?" Wrex continued.

Shepard cracked a smile. "Miranda came with the ship." She also jammed a thumb over her shoulder at Jacob, looking mildly annoyed. "So did that one. They're like a package deal."

"What does that mean?" I interrupted, my brow plates pulling down.

Shepard cocked her own eyebrow. "It means I can't think of any reasons why he's here besides that Miranda wanted him and he happened to survive Lazarus Station."

"He's sitting right there, Shepard," Tali mentioned, her tone almost embarrassed.

Jacob's response was distracted, his eyes never leaving the area and the three figures fighting within. He waved Tali off. "She's not wrong."

"See?" Shepard declared.

"Real sensitive," I scoffed, narrowing my eyes.

However, Wrex chose that moment to lean in alarmingly close and breathe in deep, just centimeters from Shepard's face. She flinched back and pushed at his head with an armored hand, face contorted in repulsion.

"Sniffing people is rude in human culture, Wrex," Shepard lectured. She crossed her arms. "You should know that by now."

Wrex chuckled, no remorse in sight. "I know something at least," he replied cryptically. He looked Shepard straight in the eyes. "Really Shepard? Cerberus?"

Shepard looked taken aback by the switch in topics. "Yeah, Wrex, Cerberus. I needed the resources, and the Alliance wasn't doing anything about the missing colonists," she answered slowly.

"I didn't mean that," he scoffed. He jerked his chin at the arena. "The girl. I can smell her on you."

Shepard's face went blank but then slowly flushed into a deep shade of red that went all the way down her neck and disappeared into her armor. She struggled to come up with an answer.

"We're in close quarters," I swooped in with the save, "and Miranda is the XO. They do a lot of planning together."

Relief spilled across Shepard's face, but Wrex didn't seem convinced.

"The same way she and Liara used to do a lot of 'research' together?" he asked wryly. I didn't have a reply for that, and if anything, Shepard's face managed to turn even redder. "I don't care about your personal life, Shepard. Just remember what Cerberus has done."

"I haven't forgotten." Her face darkened. "But not my crew," Shepard defended. The reply was swift and decisive, and I was surprised at the absence of hesitation in her voice as she jumped to their defense. "They're my people now, Wrex."

The large krogan sucked in a deep breath and nodded on the exhale. Then he clasped his hands together on the realization that the third round of the Rite was about to begin.

"This is going to be good!" he exclaimed.

A giant thresher maw exploded from the ground just outside the arena walls, and the blood drained from Shepard's face. The monster screeched and lobbed acid at our team, sending them scrambling for cover, Miranda separated from the rest.

Shepard turned to me, her face hard.

"I told you I had a bad feeling about today."

Concrete went flying as the thresher maw discovered it could, in fact, break through the arena floor.

XXXX

Miranda

I was starting to _really_ dislike enclosed spaces.

I choked on the concrete dust clouding the air, lungs struggling to fill as I put every ounce of strength I had into holding the large slab of concrete from crushing me. My biotics were already flickering and shuddering with the effort.

I could hear Grunt straining to pull at the weight from above, but it didn't lift even an inch. I wasn't sure where Jack was, but the numbers under her name on my HUD were low, bleak even. Hopefully, she was keeping her head down. She wasn't equipped for a one woman assault on a thresher maw.

Never thought I'd see the day when I was worrying about Jack.

"Miranda, I can't lift this," Grunt growled over the comms.

"Cheerleader, stop fucking around," Jack snapped. Well, I definitely wasn't worrying about her anymore. "Use the drugs and move your ass. I'm tired of playing worm target."

She meant the Minagen X3 that Shepard had now insisted we carry on missions. It would be useful, of course, if the vial weren't currently in with my other medical supplies, safely tucked away in an armor compartment. I would have to drop at least one arm to try and reach for it, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to hold the concrete without both arms directing my biotics. My biceps quavered to make their point.

"I can't reach it. Jack..." I paused. A bead of blood rolled down my top lip and into my mouth, and I tasted the sharp tang of blood with frustrated understanding: I'd already hit the first stage of biotic exhaustion. "Jack, I need your help."

Her only answer was silence, and for a moment, while my tongue felt grit on my teeth and tasted cement and blood on my lips, I considered that perhaps Shepard had been right. Maybe it had been foolish to think Jack would 'have my back,' even after my apology. Perhaps _especially_ because of my apology. But I'd felt confident because nothing had changed in practice. Jack occasionally fought my orders, because that's what Jack does, but she hadn't left. She hadn't left, and I'd half expected her to, now that it seemed fairly obvious Cerberus and I were not seeing eye to eye, now that no one would hunt her down.

It was absolutely irrational for her to stay, and yet here she was, listening to me ask her for help for the first time (and might I add _last_ time if I had anything to say about it) instead of running away to do...whatever it was she was doing before prison.

Strange, to say the least.

Bright light stung my eyes as biotics joined my own and finally lifted the concrete slab the last meter it needed to be flung to the side. Jack offered a hand, managing somehow to make even that gesture seem begrudging.

"You're welcome," Jack muttered, reaching down and grabbing my arm when I didn't take her offered hand. My shoulders protested the movement after finally getting to relax. We stumbled together into the nearest cover, dodging a spray of acid that bubbled into the ground a few paces behind us. Grunt slid in after us, and his weight caused the low wall to shake.

"Thanks," I acknowledged, and Jack stared at me flatly.

"Don't mention it," she answered. I had a feeling she meant that literally. "Now what are we going to do about that?" She jabbed her chin in the thresher maw's direction as if either of us needed help figuring out what she was referring to. "I say we just let the timer run out. It's almost there. The thing said to survive, and that's what we're doing."

"We can kill it," Grunt insisted. "We still have time left."

Jack grabbed Grunt by his armor like Shepard had done earlier, but the krogan didn't give to Jack's pull. "I didn't say yes to this just to get our asses kicked," Jack sneered.

Grunt pried her fingers from his armor with comic ease, dropping her arms back to her side with a scowl. The thresher maw spit more acid at our wall, and I coughed at the fumes wafting up from the melting concrete.

"If my krantt won't follow–" Grunt growled at the ground.

"No," I said vehemently, already cursing myself as Garrus' words came bubbling up, making me stupid and sentimental. "Jack, we're _teammates_, and that means–" _that when one of us gets sent back to the ship in shame, we don't go alone_– "helping each other. It means saving my sister or blowing up a secret Cerberus facility. And today it means killing that bloody thresher maw."

"Well, unless that big bubbly butt is hiding a rocket launcher, I'm not sure how we're going to kill that oversized worm. Because bringing heavy weapons is _cheating_," Jack sneered with a snort. "Says the people who nuked each other into oblivion."

"We don't need a rocket launcher," Grunt argued.

The two of them dissolved into squabbling, but I'd stopped truly listening right after Jack said 'oversized worm.' Because _worm_. The thresher maw worked just like a worm. It moved like a worm, and worms had closed circulatory systems. More importantly, worms had _simple_ closed circulatory systems.

"I can use reave," I said suddenly.

"And we're all thrilled about your new skill, Cheerleader, but try to keep up with the conversation," Jack snapped.

I rolled my eyes and glared at her with a new lift to my chin. "No, I can reave the thresher maw. Keep it still long enough for you and Grunt to get in close enough to actually do some damage," I replied. "I'm too far to do it from here though."

"We could throw you," Grunt offered.

My jaw shut with a snap.

"You're...serious?" I clarified, eyes wide.

"Jack practiced it with Shepard. Wanted to see if it would work," Grunt said.

I turned to Jack, who looked unusually skeptical in the face of an offer to literally throw me at a thresher maw. "So it worked? With Shepard? Without injuring her?" I asked.

"Yeah...across a short distance," Jack stated.

"But you could do it," I confirmed.

Jack narrowed her eyes at me. "Yeah, across a _short distance_." She pointed over her shoulder at the thresher maw. "That's not a short distance."

"Did Shepard ever try using her biotics to charge forward after Jack threw her? To get more distance?" I inquired.

Grunt looked at Jack then shrugged. "Never had enough room to try it."

I snuck a peek at the thresher maw, part of its body swaying back and forth above the surface while it waited for us to make another appearance, and shook my head in awe that I was actually considering this. This was insane.

"Look, much as I would usually enjoy flinging you into danger, this is crazy. I seem to remember you flying off a treadmill this morning during your reave practice. You can't–" Jack protested.

"I most certainly _can_," I countered. "Look, all you have to do is give me the boost, and I'll use my biotics to drop when I need. The only thing we're looking to do here is get me closer without being dissolved into acid, _not_ throwing me straight at the thing. Can you do that?"

"Can you follow through?" Jack taunted.

"Well," I paused and offered an almost feral grin, "I do enjoy proving others wrong."

Jack actually laughed. "Fine. I did say I'd smear the walls with you," she said, and her biotics lit up around her. She let them flow down her arm to envelop me, the feel of it like cold, electric fingertips ghosting over my body. I shivered, and she smiled. "It's not quite the same, but I guess this'll have to do."

She cocked her arm back and threw me forward.

XXXX

Perhaps I should have thought longer on how viable a plan was if it involved biotically launching myself towards a large beast.

Viable enough for me to still be alive, it seemed.

"What?" I murmured, struggling to lift my arm so I could nestle my face into my elbows and block out the unnaturally bright light glaring down on me. "Why?"

A low chuckle sounded nearby. "Samara requested the sunlamps. She's apparently been doing research into the benefits of sunlight for humans. Something about your response to sunlight in a meld? She wouldn't say much more without breaching your privacy," Dr. Chakwas explained, stepping over to the medbay cot. I blinked at her through the smallest slit I created between my arms. "In any event, Samara seemed to think the sunlight would make you feel better." The doctor shrugged, an ungraceful movement for her. "It's not harmful so I allowed it while you're recovering."

"Did she also request sunscreen?" I grumbled into my arms. "My skin doesn't look like this because I tan well."

Another laugh.

"No need. It's only been a few minutes. Enough to placate her. I'll pack them away in a moment," Chakwas answered.

I paused, actually enjoying the heat on my skin. "Leave them a little longer. It's...nice," I said eventually. And it was: the sunlight and the fact that Samara had remembered how much I liked it. There had been an abundance of sunlight where I'd grown up. On the rare occasion I was allowed outside and left to my own devices, the sun had been my favorite part.

I turned my head to the side and was jolted out of my lazy musings by the sight of Jack in the nearby bed, a bandage covering most of her torso and another on her head. I bolt up and hissed at the twinge in my own leg.

"You'd do well to leave that alone," Chakwas said unnecessarily, nodding to my leg.

"Is she…?"

"Jack is fine. She experienced a few unfortunate encounters with the thresher maw's acid, as did you. Your body, however, is much faster at dealing with your injuries than hers. I'm keeping her sedated while the medicine does its work," the doctor informed me.

"And Grunt?" I asked.

Chakwas looked over my bed to the door, where the young krogan had just exited the elevator and was marching animatedly towards the medbay, before stating, "Is right here."

"Miranda!" Grunt called, excited, as he burst through the doorway, barely getting his shoulders through as the door slid open too slowly for him. He stopped by my bed, dropping to one knee so we'd be at eye level. "They said I had to wait until you woke up to tell you."

I raised an eyebrow. "Tell me what?"

"I am Urdnot Grunt," he exclaimed. The joy radiating from him managed to pull even my lips into a small smile as he thudded a fist against his chest.

"Congratulations," I said, one word colored with all my relief and gratitude that we'd succeeded.

"Urdnot Wrex asked me to choose a battlemaster," he confided.

"Of course," I replied.

The krogan's hands twisted at the edge of the bed, and a beat of silence passed between us. When I gave no other response, Grunt almost seemed disappointed. I chose not to guess what.

"I asked if I could have two," he said, and my breath caught, sending my treacherous heart fluttering against my ribcage. It overpowered even my initial affront at the idea he might chose me over the commander. Because certainly _that _wouldn't end well. Still, the thought that Grunt had tried to consider _me_...Well, in the past, I would have been dismissive, assured him in no uncertain terms that it was a horrible idea and that he meant nothing to me outside of our professional acquaintance. Now, however, while I caught the large krogan's uncertain gaze, I couldn't bring myself to do anything of the sort. If nothing else, I was actually somewhat _flattered_.

"You did," I responded flatly.

He nodded, but then the motion turned into a shake. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" I asked when my breath came back in. "Shepard is the best battlemaster for someone of your exceptional skills. You chose well."

Grunt grunted a laugh, his wide mouth curling into something that looked unusually shy on a krogan.

"Shepard is my battlemaster," he affirmed. He bumped his fist gently against my shoulder. "She has only _one_ match."

My heart squeezed, and I bit out a soft curse—_damn it_—while I turned to the side. Grunt pretended to be interested in the wall, and I tried to recompose myself. All because of a juvenile krogan that, like too many others on this bloody ship, had managed to worm his way into my affections.

_Speaking of which…_

"Where's Shepard?" I asked.

"She's–" Grunt started to answer.

"–had some business to finish up on Tuchanka," Chakwas interrupted smoothly. She gave a meaningful glance at Grunt that might have been more effective had I not had a clear view of it.

Grunt gave the doctor a glare and finished, "–really pissed off at you. And me. She barely said two words outside of 'you're welcome' after I chose her as my battlemaster."

"Our mission was successful," I argued. "She should be pleased."

"You let your teammate throw you at a thresher maw. A beast Shepard has a notoriously bad history with," Chakwas drawled flatly. "She was positively _thrilled_."

There was a beat of silence.

"Well, I can see where Shepard got her sarcasm," I noted.

Chakwas laughed, a hearty sound. "That would be because you haven't met her real mother. Hannah would keep even you on your toes," the doctor replied. She sounded casual enough, but something about the way her voice hooked on the word _real_ sent a pang of sympathy through me. I searched for the right response, but my silence stretched too long, and the moment passed, the doctor shrugging it off as she rummaged through a drawer. She retrieved a bottle of clear liquid.

"I'm going to flush your wound once more." She indicated the bottle in her hand. "To neutralize any remaining acid. Just to be sure. And you'll rest in medbay tonight." I lifted up on my elbows to protest, but a firm hand on my chest pushed me back down. "Again, just to be sure. You can get back to work tomorrow."

"Honestly," I grumbled, pushing back the blanket that stretched over me so she could get to my leg.

"I can give you a mild sedative to help you through the night, if you wish," Chakwas offered.

I stared up at the blank ceiling of the medbay and thought of an evening with no working, like relaxing the way Shepard had bullied me into, that afternoon after we returned from Pragia. But this time there would be no Shepard beside me, no fingers trailing through my hair or a rough chuckle every time I sighed. Just the beeping of machines and the disorienting smell of antiseptic.

"Might as well," I accepted.

There was the clinking of syringes as Chakwas rummaged through another drawer, a pause by my IV, and then the room faded out.

XXXX

"Did you have to sedate her?" Shepard asked, her voice echoing down to me like through a tunnel. I felt the warmth of her hand cover mine.

"I didn't give her much. Just enough to keep her down until her body naturally sleeps through the night."

"She hasn't had a great time with sedatives lately, doc," Shepard murmured.

Chakwas was silent for a moment.

"I offered, and she agreed," Chakwas replied. "She needed the uninterrupted rest, anyway."

Shepard sighed. "I know. Just...after that business with her father...and, I mean, you've seen how twitchy she gets when she's a patient."

Discomfort settled in my stomach at her assessment. I'd thought I'd been more subtle.

"Which may be why she agreed to the sedative." Chakwas paused. "Miss Lawson really is _perfectly_ fine."

"Yeah. I know." Shepard hummed, her thumb making circles on the back of my hand. "I'm gonna stay a moment longer. I'll close up, if you'd like to go to sleep," Shepard offered.

"Thank you." I heard Chakwas' steps get closer and the brush of cloth. A hug? "It's nice, being on the same ship again. Goodnight, Evelyn," she said. She breathed the name out in a whisper, and I felt Shepard's hand tighten over mine.

"Night," Shepard muttered.

Chakwas' footsteps receded from the room, and the room sunk into silence save for the quiet beeping of machines and faint breathing. It was harder for me to keep my small bit of awareness instead of slipping back into dreams, but Shepard's voice pulled me from the edge.

"I wonder how many nights you sat like this when our positions were reversed," Shepard murmured. She interlaced our fingers. "Well, it's not really a wonder. I know. I think. Or maybe they're just dreams. But they feel real." Her words jolted me into more consciousness, until I had to will my heartbeat to slow to keep the monitors from registering a change in my pulse.

"You were holding my hand the first time I woke up. You did that a lot. The touching, I mean, especially when you were muttering to yourself. And you used to sleep at my bedside. One time you used my stomach as a pillow, and it was the most exciting thing to happen to me all week." She laughed, and if I opened my eyes I felt sure she'd be shaking her head in that way she did. "You talked to me. All the time, about everything. Mostly the science of rebuilding me, and I had no idea what you were talking about. But it kept me from going crazy. You even read me a book once. Granted, it was a god-awful book, and I hated it. But I appreciated the sentiment."

She sighed into the quiet room.

"Only thing is, I'm not entirely sure that's not just my head making up things. Was any of that real?" she whispered.

Her fingers brushed against my skin as she reached forward to push my hair off my face, and it was that, the soft affection, that caught the breath in my throat and sent something twisting in my chest. Something that felt nothing like friendship and a whole lot like waking up in her arms with our legs twined together, like the tip of her nose nuzzling into my neck and her hand splayed over my hip.

"Miranda, I know you're awake. The least you can do is answer me," Shepard murmured.

I blinked my eyes open slowly to see the amusement twisting Shepard's mouth in the dim lighting.

"Heart monitor?" I asked ruefully.

She nodded. "It's about time it betrayed you instead of me," she replied. We listened to the heart monitor beep quietly in the background until she prodded, "You haven't answered my question."

"I'm not sure why it matters. I obviously thought you wouldn't remember any of it," I replied faintly, then sighed, "I'm sorry about the book."

Shepard's face softened with the answer, and she brushed a thumb over my knuckles.

"It matters. More than you know," she murmured.

I did my best to roll more on my side without putting pressure on my leg and propped myself up on the pillows to look at her.

"Is there...a reason you're bringing this up now?" I asked.

Shepard looked surprised at the question and dropped my hand, leaning back in her chair. "I was trying to sleep, and...I don't know. I was just thinking about it, I guess."

"That desperate?" I teased, feeling bold with the darkness wrapped around us and the warmth I could see in her eyes. I shouldn't be pleased that she had trouble sleeping without me, but that didn't mean I wasn't.

"Desperate enough to overlook how angry I am?" she retorted. She sighed and pushed a hand through her hair. "I wish it were that easy. Miranda, as your commanding officer, I have to say that the stunt you pulled today was reckless and irresponsible. And I'm just...just so…"

I set my jaw, the reprimand leaching some of the warmth from me. "You would have done the same thing," I pointed out.

Shepard's eyes flicked up to the ceiling, like she was asking some entity for help, before she returned her gaze to me with an ever-deepening frown. "Maybe, but Miranda if something happens to you, there's no _you_ to fix you. I'm _supposed_ to take stupid risks so you people don't have to. Damn it, when Jack lifted you up, and I realized what she was about to do...I was _terrified._"

Her words took on a feverish pitch as she balled her fist into my blanket, squeezing tight. Then she sighed again, dropping her head.

"I promised myself I wouldn't yell at you," she muttered, shaking her head. Her eyes flicked up to me, and her mouth twisted into a wry grin. She huffed out a breath. "And I'll admit, it was also really impressive. You've been practicing reave for how long and you managed it on a thresher maw? I mean if I look past how scared I was and how reckless you were being, I'm also stupidly proud of you."

"Proud of me?" I repeated slowly, the words foreign in my mouth.

Shepard blinked before answering, "You were _incredible_. How could I not be?"

It was suddenly just that little bit harder to breathe when she was looking at me like _that_, emerald eyes gleaming and mouth tipped up in the barest hint of a smile. The fact that we were even here, that Shepard had gone from hating me to admitting she was _proud_ of me, well, that was something I never expected to happen. Just like I never expected the squeeze of her fingers to set my heart racing or her smile and the way it scrunched the freckles over her nose to actually make my chest _hurt_ with longing.

I may have rebuilt Commander Shepard, but I never expected _her_.

I kissed her, catching her tiny gasp of surprise against my lips and tugging her towards me with a hand wrapped into the front of her shirt. My other hand found the side of her neck, and I could feel her pulse flutter, frantic and intoxicating, under my fingertips. Shepard was soft and warm, and I _wanted _with a fierceness that I wasn't prepared for.

My heart began a slowly panicking thump in my chest when the minute stretched and she hadn't responded, but then Shepard parted her lips and kissed back with an intensity that had me gasping for breath. Her arms wrapped around me, and her hands slid up my back until they were curled up between my shoulder blades, pressing me to her with a desperation I could _feel_ with every press of her lips. She kissed me once, twice, a third time, her hands lowering me to the bed as she kissed down my neck, and she sucked, hard, until I moaned into the quiet room.

Shepard's head snapped up, looking over at Jack in the other bed, before landing back on me.

"She's sedated," I said, my voice rough and embarrassingly needy.

"Right," she murmured. She dipped down and pressed her lips to mine, gentle and sweet, before pulling away again. "Maybe we should go upstairs."

"I'm supposed to stay for observation," I reminded, though it was difficult to focus with the way her eyes stayed focused on my mouth, her gaze hot with a hunger that had me biting my lower lip.

"I've monitored you before," she said.

"Somehow I think Chakwas only approved that because you weren't at risk for injuring me further," I mused.

Shepard looked confused, but then I raised an eyebrow, and my words seemed to click. Shepard's cheeks flushed, a deep color spreading across her skin that was visible even in the low light.

"And if I just meant that I don't want to go to sleep without you?"

I scoffed gently. "Want or can't?"

"Both?" she answered, her eyes softening. She rested her hand against my cheek so softly that it made me _ache_, and when she spoke again, it was in a whisper, "I think I was addicted to you the first time I woke up next to you."

"Oh," I said softly, and I wanted to ask what the bloody hell that meant, what the bloody hell this was, even though I was the one who'd acted first. I hesitated. _Whatever this was _with Shepard had only just bloomed with a few short kisses and had nothing at all resembling roots to keep it from slipping through my fingers, so I certainly couldn't ask about it. Not now, anyway. And then I was in a crisis of another kind, trying to figure out why I was worried about roots, when I'd never wanted anything of the sort.

_This woman will be the death of me_.

The thin blankets covering me on the medical cot were pulled back, and then Shepard climbed onto the tiny bed with me, turning on her side and scooting impossibly close in order to fit. She threw her arm over my waist.

"What are you doing?"

She raised her head from where she was settling it on my chest. "Sleeping," she said. "I thought that was part of our arrangement."

I looked around at the medbay and its windows and warned, "Shepard…"

"I'll slip out in the morning; don't worry," she replied with a small smile. She pressed a kiss over my heart and sent it galloping wildly. "Your secret is safe with me."

I rolled my eyes and let my cheek rest on the top of her head.

"And what secret would that be?" I hummed.

She chuckled against my skin, and my chest warmed where she nuzzled her nose into it.

"That you _do _like me," Shepard answered.

My reply, when it came, was perhaps too serious for the moment, but was nonetheless the most honest thing I'd ever said to her.

"I'm not sure I ever had a choice in the matter."

* * *

**It's been a while and for that I'm sorry. This chapter was frustrating for me (I bet you can guess why) and just took a lot longer to get right. So...was the kiss worth the wait? Just remember that we aren't done here. Shepard and Miranda may have finally admitted to *something* but these two are never going to make it easy. Time to see how they handle a fledgling relationship in the face of a suicide mission getting ever closer. **

**Writing Grunt's mission was crazy fun too, and I hope everyone liked the development between him and Miranda. And Miranda and Jack...hm. Ngl, I'm imagining an interlude fic to bridge ME2 and ME3 with a jackanda friendship on the run after they arrest Shepard. But we'll see. **

**Thanks so much for reading, and I'd love to hear from you! I appreciate all of my reviews, and I also wanted to throw in a thank you to my guest reviewers from last chapter since I can't respond to you directly. I'm also on tumblr (which I've mentioned before but I like to remind you) under the same name with no capitalizations. Come say hi if you want!**


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